Voyager and Doctor Who: Time Fluxed
by biomechanical
Summary: Voyager enters a wormhole that promises to take them at bit closer to home, but they get more then they bargained for when a strange blue police box suddenly appears in Engineering. No slash.
1. Chapter 1: Time Fluxed

**A/N: This story can take place anytime during ST:V season 6 and right after the DW episode the Runaway Bride. **

**This is a combination of three story ideas worked into one. Instead of a series, you get it all right here.  
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**I do not own Star Trek or Doctor Who.**

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><p><em>Captain's log, star date 53282.5. After extensive research, we have been able to confirm the wormhole we discovered two days ago is stable enough to enter safely and that it will take us seven thousand light years closer to the Alpha Quadrant in a matter of minutes. It won't be much, but every little bit helps on our long journey home.<em>

"Set a course, Mr. Paris." Captain Kathryn Janeway commanded from her chair in the center of Voyager's bridge.

"Yes, ma'am," said Ensign Paris with an ear to ear grin, a dead give away of his excitement of piloting the starship into a wormhole.

"Take us in. Full impulse," the captain said as she crossed her legs and rested her hands on the chair's armrests. She glanced at Commander Chakotay sitting next to her and smiled. The air of anticipation over the wormhole hadn't left the ship since its discovery. He returned her smile then turned his attention to the view screen.

Voyager moved forward on its slow approach into the mouth of the wormhole beautifully swirling in front of the ship.

"One hundred thousand meters," Mr. Paris said. "Fifty thousand." He continued and after a few moments. "We are in the wormhole."

The ship shuddered slightly as the wormhole pulled it along its tunnel through space.

"Shields holding. All systems functioning normally." Ensign Harry Kim reported.

"Nothing to it," said Paris smugly. "We'll be seven thousand light years closer to home in no time."

Suddenly, Voyager jolted violently. Lieutenant Tuvok and Ensign Kim gabbed onto their consoles to keep from falling. The lights dimmed and the alert panels began flashing red as the siren sounded. Janeway stayed in her chair, but planted both feet firmly on the floor to stabilize herself. "Report!" she said sternly.

"I'm detecting…well that's strange." Ensign Kim stalled as he stared at the sensor read outs playing across his screen.

"Mr. Kim!" Janeway called as she turned and glared at him.

"Sorry, Captain," Kim said sheepishly. "I'm picking up temporal distortions directly ahead only I haven't seen temporal distortions like these before."

The ship rocked again.

"Explain, Mr. Kim," Chakotay said as he looked around the bridge as if he expected it to collapse at any moment.

"I don't know," he said almost at a loss for words. "They're temporal distortions but they are different somehow. I'm sorry, but I really don't know more then that."

Nodding, Janeway turned back toward the view screen. "Mr. Paris, how much longer until we're out of the wormhole?"

"Sixteen seconds," he replied. "Thirteen." Paris continued. "Ten. Nine. Eight." The ship started to shake. "Seven. Six." The shaking became more violent with each passing second. "Four. Three."

"We're nearing maximum structural integrity," Kim said.

"Two. One!"

Voyager shot out of the wormhole and came to an abrupt stop. The shaking stopped and the air was still and quiet on the bridge. The wormhole behind the ship closed and vanished.

"Where are we, Mr. Paris?" the captain asked as she stood up and stepped closer to the view screen.

"According to these readings," Paris tapped on the panel, "we are seven thousand light years from where we entered the wormhole. We made it. It worked."

Janeway turned to face the bridge crew. "Damage report, Mr. Tuvok."

The Vulcan calmly glanced over the read outs on his panel. "Minor damage on decks ten, eleven and fifteen. Four minor injuries reported."

The captain looked relieved. "Stand down red alert." The lights returned to normal, the siren silenced and the panels stopped pulsing red. "Mr. Kim, any idea what happened?"

Focusing on his console, he furrowed his eyebrows as he spoke. "Those temporal anomalies suddenly appeared in front of us and we passed right through them. They don't seem to have had any affect on the ship."

Overhead, a voice chimed into the Bridge. "Security to engineering!"

Tuvok grabbed his phaser and paused in front of the turbo lift. Janeway nodded and she watched him quickly disappear behind the sliding door.

The Doctor draped himself over the bench in the console room of the TARDIS. He lay on his back letting an arm and a leg hang to the floor as he stared up at the ceiling. Thinking about her, he was. He let out a depressed sigh, he was alone…again. "Well not really alone, am I, old girl?" he said aloud. The TARDIS emitted a low hum in response and the Doctor smiled softly.

Without warning, he found himself on the floor with his face pressed into the grating as the TARDIS suddenly rocked violently. "Ow," the Doctor said. As soon as the shaking stopped, he was on his feet. "What was that?" He exclaimed as he dashed around to the monitor on the other side of the console.

The TARDIS jolted again, knocking the Doctor back to the floor. Like a spring, he was back on his feet flipping switches and pulling levers. He paused and stared at the screen with curiosity that slowly turned to astonishment.

"There's another ship in the vortex," he said in awe. "Fantastic!" He laughed with pure glee as the TARDIS jolted again, only this time he held on to the console to keep from falling.

"Oh," the Doctor said. "The ship is dragging us with it. Well let's see what happens, shall we?" He braced himself with a manic grin as the TARDIS began shaking more and more violently. Just as suddenly as the shaking started, it stopped leaving the console room silent save for the soft hum of the TARDIS engines at rest.

The Doctor, with his mouth slightly open, looked around the room. "We've landed somewhere?" He raised his eyebrow and focused back on the monitor. "Why, yes we have! But where?" Pushing a button, he smiled wide. "Oh! We landed inside the ship! Ha ha!" Curiosity took over and he ran for the TARDIS door only to pause with his hand on the handle. "Hang on. I can't go without my coat." He turned around on his heel and raised an eyebrow as he scanned the console room, "Now, where could it be?"

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.

Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres stood at her post in Engineering as was to be expected when the ship was about to enter something potentially dangerous as a wormhole. When the shaking stopped, she realized the ship had cleared the wormhole. All was still for a moment until a strange pulsing whooshing noise slowly grew louder and filled the room.

Torres, along with the other personnel, watched wide-eyed as a large blue box with a pulsing white light on top slowly began to appear out of thin air about ten feet in front of the warp core. The light corresponds with the noise, Torres noted to herself. When the blue box completely materialized, both the light and noise ceased.

Torres stared at the blue box in disbelief then shook her head as if to break herself from a trance. She tapped her communicator, "Security to engineering!" The other engineering crew joined her with phasers in hand as she gave the blue box a quick look over.

Seeing that one side had what looked like an old fashioned handle, she and the crew moved to stand in front of it at a distance. Why didn't the computer go to red alert? Torres wondered. They held back waiting for security to arrive, which wasn't very long at all.

.

.

Tuvok and his team entered Engineering armed with hand phasers and immediately positioned themselves between the crew and the blue box.

"What is it?" Tuvok asked Torres keeping his eyes trained on the box.

"I don't know," she said with a slight shake of her head. "It appeared out of nowhere."

"Has it done anything?"

"Not yet," Torres said as she flipped open a tricorder and held it up. Tuvok's eyes remained focused on the blue box.

"Hm. I can't get any readings inside," Torres said aloud. "There must be something blocking the scan, but the outside is made of…wood? That doesn't make any sense."

Just then the door of the blue box opened. Tuvok and the security team tensed their stance and aimed their phasers at a tall thin man in a brown pinstriped suit and a long tan overcoat that just stepped out.

It was then Voyager's computer went to red alert indicating an alien intruder.

The man stopped and gawked at the Starfleet officers in front of him. He closed the TARDIS door and raised both his hands. His expression changed to a wide cheery smile as he waved the fingers on his right hand. "Hello," he said.

"Who are you?" Tuvok demanded. "How did you get on this ship?"

The man moved to lower his hands and step forward, but when the phasers were raised a bit higher in a clearly threatening manner, he froze and raised his hands back up.

"I'm the Doctor," he said proudly. "And as for how I got here," an eyebrow raised, "I really don't know."

"The Doctor?" said Torres looking confused. "You don't mean you're a hologram...?"

Now it was the Doctor's turn to look confused. "Uh, hologram? Wow. I've been accused of being a lot of things, but a hologram is a new one. Nope. Not a hologram. Listen, can I put my arms down now? Starting to get a little, you know, uncomfortable."

Tuvok's stern gaze told the Doctor that was probably a no. His attention shifted to Torres holding the tricorder towards him and he regarded it with curiosity.

"He's not a hologram," Torres said. "But he is an alien that's not in our database."

"I guess this is first contact for ya." The Doctor beamed over the excitement of the idea.

Torres tapped her communicator. "Captain, I think you should come to Engineering right away. We have a guest."

"On my way," said the captain overhead.

"So, uh, my arms?" The Doctor looked at Tuvok pleadingly.

The Vulcan finally nodded and relaxed his stance, though he kept an eye on the Doctor's every move. The other officers relaxed as well.

"Oh thank you," the Doctor said with relief when he lowered his arms. With a friendly smile, he took a couple of steps forward and held out his hand to Torres.

Torres hesitated, but then took it in her own and shared the handshake. "Lieutenant Torres, and I'm sorry. You're doctor…?" she asked expectantly.

The Doctor leaned forward slightly waiting for more, but Torres remained silent. "Aww you didn't say 'doctor who'. Just about everyone does and I tell you, it never gets old. Anyway, it's just the Doctor, but you can call me Doctor." He winked.

He let go of her hand and made introductions with Tuvok, Vorik and the three security officers. The other Engineering officers had returned to their posts once the situation relaxed.

The door to Engineering opened with a quiet hiss and Captain Janeway entered the room. Upon seeing the Doctor, she smiled warmly and fearlessly walked up to him. "Hello," she said extending her hand. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation star ship Voyager."

The Doctor smiled widely and shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Captain Janeway. I'm the Doctor of the TARDIS." He gestured toward the blue police box behind him.

A glimmer of confusion crossed Janeway's face as she released his hand, but she kept her composure. "Nice to meet you, Doctor. Excuse me." She looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, stand down red alert." The computer complied with the command. "Now tell me, please," she rested her gaze back on the Doctor and continued, "why are you on my ship?"

"Now that, my good captain is the question of the day because I have no bloody idea." He rocked on his heels with a chuckle.

Janeway nodded, though a bit surprised at the jovial answer. "Well. We could we start with where you were-"

The Doctor pointed a finger toward the ceiling in a gesture meant to interrupt. "Pardon me, but can we talk in a place a bit more comfortable. Over a nice cup of tea, perhaps?"

The captain smiled. "Sure, but would you mind coming to Sickbay first? It's standard procedure for all guests to be checked for any harmful pathogens. You understand?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor said with a nod. "Completely. Lead the way." He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a pair of thick, dark rimmed glasses and put them on.

The Doctor, Janeway and Tuvok, who dismissed the security officers, turned to leave when Torres shouted. "Hey! What about this box?"

"Oh no need to worry about that," the Doctor said with a grin as he looked around the hallway he just stepped into. "She'll be fine right where she is."

The Engineering door closed leaving Torres with an annoyed look. "Yeah, sure," she mumbled with a sigh.

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><p><strong>AN: What did you think? Please leave a review and let me know, I would appreciate it!  
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	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews so far. I do appreciate them. Thank you****, Forgotten Whispers, for pointing out a few errors.**

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><p>The Doctor, with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, walked down the corridor beside Captain Janeway. Tuvok followed closely behind, relaxed but ready for action should the Doctor pose any sort of threat.<p>

"I can't help but notice that your clothing is similar to twentieth century Earth," Janeway said to maintain conversation with her mysterious guest.

"Not surprising," the Doctor said casually. "I'm quite fond of that century."

Crewman Chell happened to walk past heading the other direction. The Doctor was pleased. He was beginning to like these people. Such diversity and acceptance.

"One of my officers, Tom Paris, is also fond of the twentieth century," the captain said. "I'm sure he'd be glad to talk to someone who shares his enthusiasm."

"I would enjoy that too." The Doctor smiled as he stopped and leaned closer to examine a portion of the glossy black panel that runs down the middle of the wall. He reached out and gently touched the panel, which responded by lighting up and displaying a map of the section of the ship he was currently in. He nodded and continued walking. "Tell me, what are you doing out here, in space?"

"We're explorers mostly, but we're a long way from home and we're just trying to get back."

"How far?"

"Even at our fastest speed, at this point it would take about fifty years to reach Earth."

"That is pretty far," the Doctor said thoughtfully even though he was wondering why they didn't use a time vortex…unless, of course, they couldn't. Still pieces missing to this little puzzle. "By the way, what year is this?" he asked as they stepped into a turbolift. "Oh, my ship has trouble with the time and I've been travelling for a while now," he explained when he saw their questioning expressions, "easy to lose track."

"Deck five," Janeway said to the computer and turned to the Doctor. "The year is 2376. I would like to ask you about your…Tardis. What is it? I need to know if my ship is in any danger."

"No need to worry about the TARDIS, captain," he said smugly. "She's perfectly safe."

Suddenly, Janeway and Tuvok vanished and in their place was a man in a red Starfleet uniform with a tattooed pattern on the left side of his face. "Who the hell are you?" The man said, clearly startled.

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer but the tattooed man vanished and Janeway and Tuvok reappeared in the same place they were before. He froze with a perplexed expression as his thoughts raced a million miles a second analyzing the event trying to figure out what happened.

"Doctor?" the captain said with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. Perfectly," he said with a confidence that was rather hollow because he wasn't sure he was fine. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver.

"Oh relax," the Doctor said when he noticed Tuvok moved his hand to the phaser on his belt. "It's not a wea-aaahhooowww!" A sharp pain ripped through the Doctor's head forcing him to gasp and press his hand to his temple. "Ok, maybe not." He swayed and reached out to the turbolift wall for support.

The captain and the lieutenant stepped forward and offered their help.

The Doctor held up his hand denying the offered assistance and pushed a button on the sonic. The device emitted a soft sound as one end shone with a blue light. He pointed the lit end at himself, then after a few seconds, waved it around the turbolift. "Hm, that's odd," he said quietly as he tucked the sonic back into his jacket pocket. His brain activity had spiked and he wasn't the cause of it.

"What is that?" asked the captain indicating the device he'd just used.

"Oh, it's just a sonic screwdriver. It's not a weapon." He messaged his temple.

"It's a good thing we're heading to Sickbay. Maybe we'll be able to find out what happened."

The Doctor agreed.

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When the Doctor entered Sickbay escorted by Janeway and Tuvok, the Emergency Medical Hologram stood ready to greet them. The Doctor had removed his glasses and was walking on his own.

"So who is the tattooed man?" the Time Lord asked. "Do you know him?"

"Commander Chakotay," Tuvok said. "I'll find out where he is." He stopped by the door and tapped his communicator as Janeway walked with the Doctor to the primary biobed.

"Torres to the captain." Janeway's communicator chirped. "I need to talk to you about some readings."

She tapped the communicator in response. "Just a moment."

When the Doctor sat on the biobed, she excused herself and walked to a panel on the far side of the room. The EMH with a tricorder in hand, moved to stand in front of the Doctor.

"Hello," the hologram greeted his patient pleasantly. "I'm the Doctor. I understand you had an incident in the turbolift?" The captain had informed the medical hologram of the situation while in route to Sickbay.

The Doctor, who was rubbing his head, paused and stared at the hologram incredulously. "Doctor who?" he asked with a mischievous grin.

"Just the Doctor." The hologram answered flatly. "And why do I suddenly feel like I'm the butt of a joke? Again." He narrowed his eyes at Ensign Paris who just walked up beside him.

"Don't look at me, Doc," Paris said with mock offense.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," the Doctor said with a laugh. "I've been on the receiving end of that question so many times. I must say it's a real treat to get to ask it for once."

The EMH was not amused and Paris couldn't help but chuckle at the hologram's reaction.

"Laugh it up, Ensign." The hologram huffed.

Paris ignored the EMH and introduced himself to the Doctor.

"Ah, the twentieth century Earth enthusiast," the Time Lord said. "What's your favorite bit?"

"Television by far. They had such gre-"

"Well I'm glad you two seem to be getting along," the EMH said, interrupting Tom rather gruffly. "And I'm glad you seem to be feeling better, but I still have work to do. Now, please hold still."

He snatched up a small scanner from the tray Paris held and waved it over the Doctor, starting with his head. The Doctor fell silent as his curiosity filled eyes followed the flashing scanner intently.

"Hm," the EMH said to himself as he stared at the tricorder. "Well, you have quite the interesting physiology, _Doctor._" He exaggerated 'doctor', but gathered himself when Paris rolled his eyes. "Two of everything it seems; hearts, cardiovascular, respiratory…is your body temperature normally sixty-one degrees?"

The Doctor nodded and suddenly, without any warning, everyone in Sickbay vanished. He didn't move other then taking a sniff of the air as he pulled out the sonic and waved it around.

There was nothing strange in the air, and his other senses weren't telling him anything new. Neither was the sonic. Now, he slid off the biobed and walked to the console in the center of the room to scan it when movement from the doctor's office caught his attention. He moved to the glass wall and looked in to see the EMH sitting at a desk staring a computer screen.

The hologram turned and upon seeing the Doctor, was immediately alarmed. He jumped to his feet as he tapped his communicator calling security to Sickbay. Moving around the glass wall, the EMH faced the Doctor. "Who are you and where did you come from?" The hologram demanded in a stern, yet panicked tone.

The Doctor was quite serious now. "I need you to answer me and I need the answer quickly, you've never met me before just now?"

"No," the bewildered hologram said.

Now, he was getting somewhere, but the Doctor wouldn't get a chance to ask any further questions when the scene changed again. He was back on the biobed with the medical hologram and Paris right where they were before.

"Oh!" He jumped to his feet and grasped the startled EMH by the shoulders. "This is brilliant! It happened again and I have no idea what's causing it!"

Pain tore through the Doctor's head so sharply he doubled over and immediately pressed his hands tightly over his temples. Paris quickly set aside the tray and helped the EMH get the Doctor back onto the biobed as he stifled a cry of agony. While Paris gently held the Doctor to prevent him from falling off, the EMH scanned his head.

"His brain activity is off the scale compared to the scan I took just a couple of minutes ago." He grabbed a hypospray. "I'll give him a sedative for the pain."

The Doctor grabbed the EMH's wrist. "NO!"

"But-"

"No. It's already passing. I'll be fine," the Doctor said as he slowly sat up and gazed at the hologram with an imposing seriousness. "Never, _ever_ give me a sedative of _any_ kind. Do you understand?"

"Yes," the EMH said reluctantly, "but you should know that your brain activity reached the highest levels I've ever seen and I gather from the pain that it's not normal to your species."

"Ah ha! A pattern! My brain spikes, I step into another time stream. No. I've never experienced anything like this before and it's only happened since I've arrived here. Quite the mystery, isn't it?" The Doctor beamed.

Janeway had walked up during the commotion and now gently rested her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "Doctor, can you tell us what happened?"

The Doctor described what he saw and he didn't bother masking the excitement he felt for the new experience.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," Paris said when the Doctor finished the story.

"And why shouldn't I?" the Doctor said. "This is part of the adventure. Part of what keeps life so interesting. And you know what's really interesting?" He hopped off the biobed and took a couple of strides toward Sickbay's door.

"What, Doctor?" Janeway asked.

He spun around on his heel. "I am a Time Lord, my dear captain, a Time Lord! Do you know what that means?" The Doctor was manic now as thoughts raced through his head faster than any human can imagine. "No, of course you don't," he said saying words as fast as he could. "Your computer didn't recognize my species, so I'll tell you. As a Time Lord, I know time. Past, present and future. Not events themselves, naturally, but the flow of time itself. If there's a ripple in the time stream, I know it and if there were ever ripples in the time stream, it would be what I've been experiencing. I've seen this before. The problem is I can't sense these little bumps. So do you get it now? Do you see what the problem is?" He paused and looked expectantly at each of the three standing before him.

"These aren't time ripples?" Paris ventured.

The Doctor ran up to Paris, placed both hands on either side of his head and gave him a kiss in the middle of his forehead. "Exactly, Tom Paris!" the Doctor exclaimed. He released the shocked Ensign and dashed for the Sickbay door. "Now come on then. I need some answers before it happens again!"

"Where are you going?" Janeway called out.

"Back to the TARDIS!" And the Doctor was out the door. Tuvok was about to follow, but the captain told him to stay.

"I don't know about you, captain, but I kinda like that guy," Paris said with a grin.

"Good because you're going with him. Find out what you can."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a look of uncertainty and jogged out of Sickbay to catch up with the Doctor.

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I read more about Voyager and TARDIS specs then I ever thought I would!**

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><p>"It seems we have a time traveler on our hands." The captain addressed the crew members seated around the table in the Observation Deck. "And so far we know he calls himself the Doctor and 'Time Lord', arrived in a box called 'Tardis' right after we exited the wormhole, and now seems to be experiencing hallucinations. What else can you tell me?"<p>

"That blue box," Torres began, "is like nothing I've ever seen. It seems to be made of wood on the outside, but sensors can't penetrate it, at least while the door is closed. When the door is open, like when the Doctor stepped out, sensors showed what seems to be a confined quantum singularity contained within. It is possible to travel in time using a singularity."

"Did you see inside the box?" asked Seven of Nine, changing the subject in her cool even tone.

"Not really a good look, no, but, there is something else." She paused when the captain leaned forward with interest. "Well I wasn't too happy about that guy leaving that large box right in the middle of Engineering taking up space, so I thought I would transport it to the cargo bay and tell him where I moved it to. I couldn't get a lock on it."

Seven raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"It's too big." Torres shrugged her shoulders. "According to the sensors, it's a vastly enormous ship…at least on the inside. I know it sounds crazy, but that's the best I've got."

Seven tilted her head to the side. "Intriguing," she said and frowned in speculation.

"Time Lord," Commander Chakotay said. "Is that a title or the name of his species?"

"That isn't clear, and neither are his true intentions," Janeway said, leaning back in her chair.

"Do you think he's a threat?" he asked.

At this, Tuvok spoke. "He is a curious person to be sure, but seems friendly and rather inquisitive, if not erratic. He is understandably driven to discover what is happening to him, but I do not perceive him as a threat. At least not yet."

"About what's happening to him." Janeway turned to the small view screen displaying the EMH's balding image. "Doctor?"

"I must say that I am absolutely fascinated by his physiology." The hologram beamed. "Once I finish going over all the data I've collected, I'm going to have to write an arti-"

"Doctor!" The captain interrupted making her impatience clear.

"Ahem, yes." The hologram collected himself and continued. "Well, he's not hallucinating. After all, he described the commander without having met him, and since I was scanning him when he had another experience, I did pick up a trace temporal distortion. It was very faint, almost undetectable."

"I don't understand," Kim said. "Our sensors are able to pick temporal anomalies. Why didn't they pick that up?"

"The Doctor claims to be able detect temporal anomalies as well," the Vulcan said and steepled his fingers. "But because he couldn't in this case, he believes the anomalies to be something else."

Janeway took in a deep breath contemplating the information. "Well, I see no reason not help our new friend. Be'Lanna, try to find out more about the temporal distortion in the Tardis. It may be the cause of his problems. Tom is in Engineering with the Doctor now. Seven and Harry, go to Astrometrics and see if you can modify the sensors to detect these faint temporal distortions. We need to get to the bottom of this." She paused and let her eyes fall on each person at the table. "Dismissed."

.

.

"Is that a telephone booth from mid-twentieth century London? How did you preserve it so well?" asked a fascinated Tom Paris.

The Doctor wore a wide smug grin as he unlocked the TARDIS door. "You know your history," he said in an amused tone. "It is a police box, but then again, it isn't."

He opened the door and strode in, leaving a wide-eyed Paris standing at the threshold. Before him was the console room, an impossible room, and Tom stood in awe.

"Come on in." The Time Lord invited as he shrugged off his overcoat and tossed it to the side. He didn't seem to notice it missed the intended target, the handrail, and instead landed on the floor in a heap. In a couple of strides, he put on his glasses and was in front of the monitor pushing buttons.

Tom pulled out a tricorder and finally stepped inside. "These readings aren't making any sense," he said. "I'm picking up…sub-space pockets?"

"Uh." The Doctor looked to the ceiling as he pondered. "Oh, must be the dimensions in the back. The TARDIS has I don't know how many." His eyebrows crunched together as he focused his attention back on the monitor.

Tom tucked the tricorder back into its carrying case on his hip, and took in the room as he walked up to the Doctor. He watched the alien for a moment and looked at the screen, but the images were unknown to him. "Did you say dimensions?" he asked finally.

"Uh huh." The Doctor kept his eyes on the monitor and flipped a couple of switches as he spoke. "Every room in the TARDIS is a dimension. Even this one. How else would you fit all this into such a tiny box?"

Tom raised his eyebrows, but was thoroughly impressed and the Doctor knew it. He loved all the different reactions people had when they learned of the amazing TARDIS. So amusingly human.

Then, there it was on the screen, a clue.

"Hang on. What's this now?" The Doctor absorbed the information and took a step back in astonishment. "I'm in a parallel universe AND slipping between time streams. Ooo, this can't be good." He took his glasses off and tapped them lightly on his chin. "Why didn't I know that though?" He mumbled the question with a thoughtful frown.

Tom opened his mouth to speak but the Doctor suddenly grabbed his shoulders, his eyes wide and manic. "Quick! Tell me everything about your universe!"

"Urm." Was all Tom could manage between mentally processing the Doctor's tall order and wondering if he was going to get kissed on the forehead again.

"Too slow!" The Doctor released Tom and turned away in frustration. Then, he had an idea and like a switch, he was ecstatic again. "Your computer!" He dashed out the door leaving Tom alone in the TARDIS.

Tom sighed. "I don't know if I can keep up with this guy," he said shaking his head but he ran after the Doctor anyway.

.

.

The Doctor quickly strode up behind a uniformed woman working at a computer panel about to ask if he could use it when suddenly she vanished before his eyes. Realizing the whatever was happening again; he stopped and slowly looked around. He was still in Engineering, but the TARDIS wasn't there. In this time stream, it may not exist and that concerned the Doctor deeply.

Voyager's warp core thrummed steady and quiet to his right, but that was the only movement in he was immediately aware of. After listening for a moment, he barely heard something that sounded like a girl's giggle on the upper balcony, so he headed for the lift. These slips in time were lasting longer, the Doctor noted and he also realized that the ship's intruder alert wasn't sounding. Had he been here before?

Once on the balcony, he saw two humanoid aliens standing close to one another leaning on the railing facing the warp core. They were not wearing Starfleet uniforms.

"Excuse me," he said, which of course startled them both and he waited for them to catch their breath and face him.

The petite blonde girl smiled sheepishly as her stocky, colorfully dressed companion with spotted skin spoke. "Oh, John! You gave us quite a start! We thought everyone was at the party."

The Doctor was taken aback. "We've met before?"

The girl, now concerned, spoke in a calm, sweet voice. "Of course, we have, John. Are you feeling alright?"

The Doctor started to force a laugh, but focused on the girl's eyes with an uneasy frown.

"You're trying to read my thoughts," the girl said and gasped in surprise.

In an instant, the Doctor was back where he started, on the main floor and right outside the TARDIS.

"Hey, Doctor, do you have to….whoa. I just saw you flicker." Tom stopped short behind the Doctor who spun around to face him.

"Oh! It happened again and it lasted the longest yet!" The Doctor exclaimed in excited concern. "Hang on." His demeanor suddenly turned serious. "Did you say you saw me flicker?"

Tom nodded and pulled out his tricorder. "Yes. You flickered."

A powerfully intense pain hit the Doctor so hard, he managed a pained grimace as he lost consciousness.

.

.

There was what sounded like an explosion and Voyager shuddered as if it had been hit by a ship's phaser blast. The ship automatically sounded red alert.

Captain Janeway returned to the bridge from her Ready room. "Report," she said as she quickly marched to stand in front of Tuvok at his tactical station.

"One of those unusual temporal disturbances appeared off the port nacelle and dissipated in Engineering," he said in his typical Vulcan calmness.

"Janeway to Engineering. We detected a temporal disturbance. What's happening down there?"

"The Doctor's unconscious," said Tom's voice. "And this time I saw him flicker. Whatever's going on, it seems to be getting worse."

"Seven to the captain, please come to Astrometrics immediately," said Seven's stern voice.

Janeway grimaced, but she motioned for Tuvok to follow her as she entered the turbolift.

.

.

The Doctor opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. "That is one helluva headache!" He exclaimed as he held a hand to the side of his head and started to stand up.

"Whoa. Hang on just a minute, okay?" Tom crouched next to the Doctor and held a medical tricorder near his chest. B'lanna stood next to Tom looking down at the Doctor with concern.

The Time Lord waved Tom's hand away and climbed to his feet. "Sorry, Tom, there's no time for that. Who's the short blonde girl with the pointed ears? Stands about this tall?" He held up a flattened hand to the middle of his chest.

Tom and B'lanna exchanged glances before Tom answered. "Sounds like Kes," he said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "She left the ship about three years ago now."

"Right. Okay, listen, I need to understand your universe and I need to understand it now."

Tom looked the Doctor in the eye and saw that he was indeed quite serious. The situation was becoming dangerous and the Doctor wasn't playing around anymore. "Alright," Tom said finally and motioned to a nearby computer panel. "I'm sure B'lanna wouldn't mind you use the computer over here." He glanced at her and she nodded once. "But I really don't think you'll have time to learn everything about the universe."

The Doctor walked past him with a smug grin and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He pointed it at the computer panel and it responded by displaying blocks of text accompanied with diagrams and photos. "Ah, physics. My best subject," he said with a cheeky smirk as he put on his glasses and began to read as quickly as a Time Lord can.

.

.

In the Astrometrics lab, the large screen displayed an image of Voyager surrounded by a light blue swirling mist. Suddenly, a pin point of soft yellow light emerged from the mist, circled around and struck Voyager. The image paused, rotated and zoomed in to the side of the ship until the walls turned transparent. The light continued through the ship and disappeared when it reached Sickbay.

"And that was the second incident," Seven said in her usual firm tone. "This is the most recent occurrence." The screen depicted the same scene as before only this time the light was twice as large and dissipated in Engineering.

"So," Janeway said as she watched the display, "these points of light represent not only temporal holes, but holes in sub-space that are somehow attracted to the Doctor."

"That is correct."

"And now they are doubling in size making them a threat not only to the Doctor, but to us as well." Janeway sighed at the complexity of the problem. "What's causing the anomalies in the first place?"

"I need to collect more data before I can complete my analysis, but," Seven explained with a tilt of her head, "I believe the Doctor is from a different dimension."

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Tuvok did not mask his speculative expression.

"Look." Seven pushed a couple of buttons on the console.

The display on the screen shifted and showed Voyager travelling inside the wormhole. Then a bluish-purple cloud with a black center appeared so close to the ship, the starboard bow grazed it and seemed to scattered small pieces of the rift in front it. A tube of swirling yellow-orange light flickered out of the rift like a snake tongue before the rift collapsed completely.

"A dimensional rift," the captain said with a slow nod.

"Correct," Seven said evenly. "The Doctor's ship, for lack of a better term, exits the dimensional rift while we're in the wormhole, we hit the rift and scatter temporal anomalies. What remains unclear is why hitting a dimensional rift would generate temporal distortions and why those distortions are attacking the Doctor."

Janeway stared at the image a moment more. "Share this information with the Doctor," she said and turned to leave the lab. "We need to pool our resources and stop these temporal rifts from killing him and destroying our ship."

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I updated the other chapters only to correct a couple of character names. Don't know why I can't remember how to spell B'Elanna, heh. **

**Reviewers, thanks for the kind words! I really appreciate it :D**

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><p>Once again the senior officers of the starship Voyager gathered around the table in the Observation deck with the captain, of course, at the head of the table. Joining them was Seven of Nine, the holographic doctor on the wall monitor and their unexpected alien guest, the Doctor. Everyone wore a somber expression, even the Doctor, as they discussed the dangerous matter at hand.<p>

"The last incident caused minor structural damage to the ship," the captain said smoothly. "And kept the Doctor unconscious for nearly thirty minutes."

"Yeah, that Cardassian woman was not pleased to see me at all," the Time Lord said with a brief chuckle.

She regarded the Doctor with suspicious interest. "I didn't expect you to know too much about our dimension."

He settled his eyes on the captain with a smug smile. "While I learned the physics of your universe from your computer, I took a quick peek at the species you've encountered. Hundreds of them. Quite fascinating, I must say."

The Voyager crew at the table visibly seemed impressed, but it was the Vulcan who spoke. "I do find it interesting that so far, you've stayed on Voyager in these time slips."

Nodding slowly, the Doctor answered. "So it seems and now it's affecting you. I am sorry for that." The tone of his voice was laced with regret.

"I think we should apologize to you for disrupting your dimensional rift," Janeway said with a soft smile.

"Blame is irrelevant." Seven interjected sternly. "No one is at fault in this matter. We should focus on a solution."

"Agreed," the captain said as she and the Doctor exchanged smiles.

Even though he was randomly flitting about in time and enduring some of the worst pain in his life, the Doctor felt grateful for the friendship he found in the people of this one lone, lost ship in a universe not his own.

"Well first of all," the Time Lord started, "I didn't come through my dimensional tear; I came through _**a**_ dimension tear. I don't make a habit of traveling between universes these days."

Suddenly, the Doctor's face dropped as he made a startling realization. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hang on a minute!" He abruptly stood up, sending the chair skidding back a few feet, and planted his hands on the table. "There is something very, very wrong here. The TARDIS is still working. We are in another universe and the old girl is completely unaffected."

"That doesn't seem very wrong to me," B'Elanna said with a shrug of her shoulder.

"Oh but it is! The TARDIS draws her power from _**my**_ universe, and when we're in another universe, she loses her power until recharged with another source. I've had to do it before."

B'Elanna shook her head. "I don't understand the technology of your ship, Doctor, but if you say that its wrong, there we'll take your word for it. Is there anything you want to do about it?"

"I would consider," the Vulcan interjected, "a functioning ship fortunate in light of our more immediate problem."

"Yes, you right." The Doctor straightened up and crossed his arms. "There's just something else going on here. Something we're missing."

"Noted. I will see what I can learn in Astrometrics," Seven said.

"Thank you. Now, the problem at hand," the Doctor continued. "We're out of sync with time and your universe. Well more precisely, I'm out of sync with time and you're out of sync with the universe. We just happen to be in the same place at the same time experiencing these fluxes together."

B'Elanna leaned forward and rested her arms on the table. "From all the data the Doctor, Seven and I have collected, that is the most plausible explanation we have. We're experiencing spatial shifts, he's experiencing time shifts. We just have to figure out some way of realigning ourselves."

"Alright." Janeway nodded as she mentally processed the information. "Suggestions?"

The chief engineer sighed heavily as she looked at the Doctor with a worried grimace while answering the captain. "Well, the Doctor has an idea."

All eyes shifted to the Doctor, whose growing grin indicated his idea probably bordered on the insane.

.

.

Inside the TARDIS, several floor panels around the console had been removed to allow access to the workings below. Cables and hoses spilled up and out of each, and Tom Paris sat cross-legged on the edge of one these sub-compartments holding a box of parts on his lap.

"So he actually manages to look even more annoyed then usual as he says," Tom puffed out his chest and exaggerated a frown to impersonate Lieutenant Tuvok, "'the next time I visit the holodeck, I expect to find my program restored to its original parameters'."

The Doctor, who was inside the floor compartment on his hands and knees buried in hoses using the sonic on a small component, sat up and crowed with laughter.

"After Tuvok walks away," Tom said trying to stifle his own laughter as he spoke. "Harry says…he turns to me and says, 'I wonder how the Oracle would look in a sombrero'."

The Doctor doubled over in another fit of laughter and Tom couldn't hold his own back any longer.

"You two sound like a couple of cackling hyenas in here."

The Doctor looked up and Tom turned around to see Lieutenant Torres holding a mug in each hand with a soft smile. "B'Elanna," Tom managed to say as he was still prone to chuckling, "I was just telling the Doctor about one of my pranks on Tuvok."

The Time Lord wiped a tear of laughter from his eye.

She shook her head and sighed with a smirk. "Here." She handed each man a mug. "I'm done on my end of things and I thought I'd bring you both something to drink."

The Doctor took the offered mug and smelled it. "Ooooh! Tea!" He took a long pull and gave a satisfied sigh. "And good tea at that. Thank you!"

Tom took his mug and pulled on B'Elanna's arm for her to bend over. She smiled and gave Tom a loving, but quick kiss.

The Doctor smiled at the sight of the affection, and couldn't help but think of her, of Rose. Memories of her lips on his flashed in his thoughts. It didn't matter if one kiss was to save her life or another was a deranged flap of skin possessing Rose's body, it was her face he saw before him and he deeply regretted not saying the words they both desperately needed to hear.

"Did you see the look on that man's face?" said an all too familiar feminine voice he thought he would never hear again coming from the opposite side of the console.

Shell shocked, the Doctor looked around him wide eyed. He was in the TARDIS standing at the console in front of the monitor. The floor grates were all in place, there were no Starfleet officers, and everything was in order, all except for her voice.

He dashed around the console and at the sight of her. "Rose!" he cried. He raised his arms to wrap her in an embrace barely noticing his black leather sleeves.

Rose whipped around; her soft blonde hair swirled like a halo about her startled expression. "What is it, Doc…oomph!" She was abruptly cut off when the overjoyed Time Lord grabbed her up in his arms and spun her around.

She returned his unexpected embrace and wrapped her arms about his neck with a muffled giggle.

Finally, the Doctor sat her on her feet and leaned back to gaze upon her face. He barely noticed his face of one incarnation back reflecting in her eyes. She returned his gaze, although she was thoroughly flabbergasted at the Doctor's sudden show of affection.

"Doctor?" Rose said carefully. "You act like you haven't seen me in forever. What's wrong?"

Words escaped him as a tear of joy trickled down his cheek. All he wanted to do was hold her, so he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. Suddenly, she was gone and the Doctor was back where he was, knee deep in the hoses under the TARDIS floor holding a cup of tea.

"Doctor, you flickered ag…" Tom stopped short as he noticed the rage darkening the Time Lord's face.

Without warning, the Doctor leaped out of the pit onto his feet and hurled the mug across the console room. Tea splashed out and the ceramic cup hit the bronze wall shattering into pieces. "No, no, NO!" He screamed in anguish.

Tom and B'Elanna flinched at the Doctor's display of unbridled fury and exchanged concerned glances. After a tense moment, the Time Lord's demeanor relaxed slightly, but he haphazardly swiped some tools off the console, sending them clattering to the floor, just to make room to haunch over and rest his head in his hands.

B'Elanna made the decision to step up beside the Doctor. "Doctor?" she spoke softly as she gently rested a hand on his back.

At her touch, he turned to her and B'Elanna was saddened at the sight of tears streaming down the alien's face. She may not know what happened, but she could certainly feel sympathy for the grief he seemed to be carrying.

"Why didn't the TARDIS protect me?" he asked her not really expecting an answer. "I thought I would be safe from the time rifts in here, so why did that happen?"

The expected oncoming pain was like a red hot fire poker slowly moving its way through his skull. The Doctor howled in pain and fell to the floor in convulsions.

"Medical emergency in Engineering!" Tom shouted into his communicator.

That was when one of the Doctor's hearts stopped as he succumbed to the rapidly enclosing darkness.

.

.

"The next one might be fatal." The hologram's voice sounded grim.

The Doctor's eyes flew open. He looked up at Tom and the EMH standing next to his biobed with concerned faces. "I'm not sure I can regenerate from that either," the Time Lord said noting his own voice sounded just as grim.

"How are you feeling?" Tom asked.

"Like I'm being torn apart by time." He rubbed his head leaving his spiky brown hair standing on end. He felt his chest. Two hearts beating. Exactly what he hoped to feel. "Speaking of time." He sat up and hopped off the biobed in one move. "I don't have a lot of it."

Without giving Tom or the EMH a chance to protest, he ran out the Sickbay door.

"He is quite an energetic fellow, all things considered," the hologram said with a raised eyebrow.

The Sickbay door opened and the Doctor poked his head in. "We have a universe to resync with! Are you coming, Tom?"

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please leave a review and know it will be appreciated :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I hope I got some of the Trek tech stuff close enough. The internet wasn't all that helpful for I wanted, but hey, it sure seems like they make up stuff as they go along in the show, so...Enjoy! :)**

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><p>The Doctor stood between the TARDIS and Voyager's warp core, gazing into the core's hypnotic swirling patterns. It took a little bit of convincing the crew to go along with his idea, and he had to admit that the plan was a little crazy even for him.<p>

Still, he learned Starfleet's technology enough to know that energy from the TARDIS could be routed through Voyager's deflector array to realign them with time and space. Hopefully. No, he wasn't entirely sure of the outcome, but that was the best part.

He turned and looked at his TARDIS with a love that someone would have for a ship after centuries of travel. "Fancy that you're ship can talk, B'Elanna," he said keeping his eyes on the back of the TARDIS.

"Yes, it comes in handy sometimes," the engineer said from the front of the blue box.

He put the palm of his hand on the TARDIS. "What would you say if you could talk? Hm, old girl?" he said quietly.

"Alright, Doctor," B'Elanna said. "I'm ready to start the link sequence."

The Time Lord patted his old friend and moved around to the Klingon. He knelt down and passed the sonic over the connections of cables and hoses on the floor leading from the TARDIS console to several access points into Voyager's systems. When he was satisfied, he told B'Elanna that he too was ready.

"Oh, here." B'Elanna tossed the Doctor a communicator badge.

He caught it and raised an eyebrow.

"It's a combadge I'm sure you've seen us use. It'll make it easier for us to talk."

"Thank you," he said and pressed the badge to the lapel of his pinstriped jacket. "It looks much sharper then a sprig of celery, don't you think?" He grinned.

B'Elanna looked at him blankly. "Sure." She had quit trying to figure out those sorts of quirky comments she'd come to expect from the alien. It just wasn't worth her time, or headache.

As she returned to the computer panel at her station in front of the warp core, the Doctor entered the TARDIS. Tom, who was just sliding a floor grate back into place, had offered to lend the time traveler a hand since he wasn't needed on the Bridge. The Doctor had happily accepted.

"All right, Tom!" the Time Lord said. "When I say 'when', you push that button right there. No! Not that one! Yes, that one. Okay. Ready, B'Elanna!"

With another sigh, the chief engineer tapped her communicator. "Doctor, use the combadge please."

Her badge chirped. "But you're right outside!"

"And I don't feel like yelling," the Klingon said sternly. "Now, I'm initiating the connections." Her fingers flew over her computer console as she tapped a sequence of buttons.

At the TARDIS console, the Doctor flipped a chrome toggle switch, gave a worn brass knob a couple of turns and pointed at Tom. "When!"

The Ensign couldn't help but smile as he pushed a small green button as instructed.

The TARDIS responded by emitting a low hum and the interior lights began to pulse as she connected to the Federation ship. The Doctor looked around as if he was unsure this response was a good sign or not, and Tom seemed equally concerned.

Outside the TARDIS, B'Elanna watched as glittering golden threads of light swirled into the blue mixture inside the warp core. She tapped her communicator. "Doctor, the tachyon particles are in the warp core."

"It's working! Brilliant! I'm ready for a particle bath, how about you?"

"Captain, we're ready down here," B'Elanna said over the com, ignoring the Doctor's rhetorical question. Janeway replied with the order to proceed.

Keeping the communication line open between her, the Doctor and the Bridge, B'Elanna vocalized her actions. "Activating the inverted shields," she said as she tapped in another sequence on her panel. "Activating the deflector array."

Outside Voyager, the ship's forward deflector dish began to glow with a blue-gold light.

So far so good, B'Elanna thought as she monitored every second of the attempt. Then she heard the Doctor yell and what sounded like a pounding noise coming from inside the TARDIS. Keeping her eyes on the display, she watched as the golden light on the deflector began to fade. "Doctor, what's happening?"

Inside the TARDIS, the time machine's interior lights grew dimmer by the second. "Oh no you don't!" The Doctor shouted at the console. He dashed around to the other side and picked up a hammer from the floor.

"What do you want me to do, Doctor?" asked Tom with a calm, but concerned tone.

The Doctor pounded on a section of the console inset with gauges causing lose pieces to bounce into the air with each strike. "Pull that red…thingy out from right there," he said finally.

Tom scanned the console and pulled the only, he hoped, red handled plunger 'thingy' he could find.

Instantly, the lights grew brighter and the Doctor stopped hammering looking quite pleased. He tossed the hammer over his shoulder and it landed on the floor with a loud clang. He drew in a deep breath. "Ah, much better!"

"You have quite an unusual way of fixing things, you know that, Doctor?" the Ensign said, shaking his head with amusement.

The Doctor's grin grew mischievous. "Heh, yeah."

The deflector dish began to emit the golden blue light once again.

"Whatever you did, Doctor, it worked," the chief engineer said. "Alright." She held a finger over an orange panel button. "Activating the plasma tachyon pulse on my mark."

B'Elanna couldn't help but hesitate. Was this going to work? The theory seemed sound enough, but there was too much room for error for her taste. But, it was the best one they had and neither they nor the Doctor had much time to come up with something better.

The senior officers on the Bridge and the Engineering personnel wore grim faces of uncertainty as they braced for the planned particle beam. Tom Paris and the Doctor, on the other hand, wore faces of absolute thrill and seemed revel the tense anticipation.

B'Elanna Torres drew in a breath. "Let's hope this works." She mumbled under her breath and pressed the button. "Mark."

The deflector dish sang as it emitted a wide beam of gold light that bounced off the inverted forward shields and reversed back to the ship in a wider beam. In an instant, every inch of Voyager and every person within was bathed in the bluish-gold light of the tachyon-fused plasma beam. The light surrounded the TARDIS and flooded through her doors only to become lost in her dimensionally transcendental depths.

Voyager jolted suddenly and inside the TARDIS, sparks erupted from the console showering both Tom and the Time Lord with bits of burning electricity. Both ships warped in time and space together, and when it seemed like they would break apart, the beam ceased and the light vanished.

Every person on both ships took a moment to gather their composure. No one said a word allowing the daily normal sounds of the ship to be the only noise heard.

Finally, the silence was broken as Captain Janeway on the bridge ordered damage and injury reports, Engineering quickly set about initiating diagnostics on Voyager's systems, Seven of Nine and Harry Kim in Astrometrics immediately began scanning the ship, and Tom Paris and the Doctor in the TARDIS began to frantically put out a fire that ignited on the console.

After several minutes of chaos, Seven's monotone voice sounded over the com system. "The anomalies have dissipated. We are no longer at risk."

"We did it, Doctor!" Tom started to cheer, but noticed the Time Lord appeared to be suspiciously disappointed. "What's wrong?" he asked carefully.

The Doctor scrunched his eyebrows and looked at the Ensign with a slight frown. "That was rather anticlimactic, now wasn't it?"

.

.

Several hours later, many of Voyager's crew members were in the Mess Hall enjoying an impromptu celebration hosted by the flamboyant Telaxian, Neelix. Captain Janeway made a pleasant toast welcoming the Doctor on Voyager as an extended guest and new friend. The Doctor proudly accepted the welcome, but he knew he wouldn't stay on this ship for very long. It just wasn't in his nature. While this simple fact saddened him, another simple fact was much more important. Here was a place where he was accepted. Here he had friends.

When the celebration simmered down, the Doctor sat at a table with Tom Paris, Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres, each enjoying a different, exotic drink.

"I come face to face with the man pointing a gun at me saying 'I know who you are, Doctor, and you're not going to stop me."' The Time Lord gleefully described a tale of a past exploit. "So I give him a blank look, reach into my pocket, hand him a jelly belly and ask 'would you like a jelly belly?'"

The three Starfleet officers erupted into laughter joined by the Doctor, and after a moment, B'Elanna had to ask. "And what did he do?"

"Oh he wasn't expecting that," the Doctor said smugly. "Not at all. He just stood there, dumbfounded long enough for me to knock the gun out of his hand. It was hilariously brilliant, if I don't say so myself."

Harry shook his head in disbelief between his laughter. "I can't believe that actually worked."

"Oh yeah, of course it did. That sort of thing works all the time. You should try it some time."

"Sorry, Harry," Tom interjected, "but I don't think you have it in you. You're too…serious."

"Too serious?" he said with a genuinely shocked expression. "Now, wait a-"

"Time for dessert!" Neelix cut off Harry's retort when he approached the table with a tray of four bowls and sat each bowl on the table.

The Doctor sniffed the dessert and his eyes widened. "Banana custard?"

"Yep," the chef said with a proud grin. "I overheard you mention a craving for bananas, so I whipped this up."

The ecstatic Time Lord wasted no time shoveling spoonfuls of the custard into his mouth.

Neelix chuckled. "I take it you like it, then?"

A nod was the only response. The other three at the table tried the custard and confirmed that it was indeed very delicious.

Pleased that his culinary skills proved effective once again, Neelix excused himself and returned to the kitchen.

"So, Doctor," Tom said. "I know the captain turned down your offer to take us all home because we couldn't take Voyager with us, but I think I have an idea to solve that problem."

The Doctor regarded Tom thoughtfully. "What do you have?" He took another bite of the custard.

Harry and B'Elanna were also intrigued and waited for Tom to continue.

Now that he had their attention, Tom continued. "What if the quantum singularity in the TARDIS was housed outside it…er…her and connected to Voyager, but was still controlled her console? Then you," he pointed to the Doctor, "could send Voyager into the time vortex and of course, the TARDIS would come along since she's already inside the ship. We could all be home in time for dinner _**with**_ our ships."

Tom's audience stared at him silently in thought for a few moments until the Doctor spoke in a flat tone. "Tom. That is the most ridiculous impossible idea I have ever heard. No. Not ever, but quite close. And you know what?" He grinned with enthusiasm as he looked at each of his three friends. "It's impossible enough to work! Let's give it a shot!"

The Time Lord was on his feet heading toward the door, when he suddenly turned on his heal and returned to the table where Harry and B'Elanna were still silently mulling over the idea. He grabbed the bowl of banana custard and gazed at each of them. "Well, what are you waiting for? We have a starship to send home!"

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><p><strong>To be continued in part two of the story, Assimilated.<strong>


	6. Chapter 6: Assimilated

**A/N: Again, I would like to thank everyone for leaving reviews and most importantly, reading. You are awesome!**

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><p>Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres arched her back in a stretch as she rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. She had been working on the construction of the singularity containment core around the clock for nearly thirty-six hours. "I don't know about you, Doctor," she said through a yawn, "but I'm beat."<p>

Peaking from the opposite side of the cylindrical container resembling a miniature warp core, a spiky haired, brown-eyed Time Lord frowned as he looked up to the Klingon from his cross-legged position on the floor. "What?" He seemed genuinely dumbfounded. "Not you too. We're almost done!"

Tom Paris, Harry Kim and Seven of Nine had left hours ago.

"Doctor," she put her hands on her hips in a huff, "I am tired. We've been working on this for thirty-six hours straight. Don't _you_ sleep?"

"No." He shook his head thoughtfully. "Not when I have something to do, and I always have something to do." He finished with a grin.

"Well good for you." The engineer's tone was quite abrasive. The Doctor was a nice enough fellow, but the Klingon woman's temper was much too short to handle his endless enthusiasm for very long. She turned to stomp out of Engineering, but paused when the Doctor asked her to wait.

"Sweet dreams, B'Elanna Torres," the Time Lord said with a soft, sincere smile.

B'Elanna relaxed her composure when she realized he'd meant it. "Thank you. Good night, Doctor." She gave him a small smile and left Engineering for some much needed sleep.

The Doctor watched her go with a fondness in his hearts. He was fond of everyone on this star ship Voyager. Fellow space explorers seeking out new worlds just because they are there to be discovered; he'd always loved that about humans.

And they found other, like-minded aliens to share that quest. The United Federation of Planets. How brilliant, he thought with pride. Even though the crew on this ship was far, far away from home, they were still compelled to explore and learn. It was simply amazing.

Still, he sympathized with Voyager's plight because he could relate; far away from home with little chance of ever seeing it again. It was then he realized this was the first time since fixing the time shifting that he'd thought of going back to his universe, let alone _how_ he was going to get back. Maybe, he pondered, he could stay here…at least for a little bit.

"Doctor?"

The unexpected sound of Seven of Nine's even toned voice startled him out of his thoughts and he looked up at her with a lingering sadness in his eyes. The reformed Borg did not seem to pick up on this as she clasped her hands behind her back. "I have completed the search as you requested," she said matter-of-factly. "I regret to inform you that there no records of a planet called Gallifrey or any mention of your species in any of the databases we have stored in the ship's computer."

The Time Lord solemnly nodded as he accepted that his people did not exist in, or have even visited, this universe. He had hoped that they had because, well, he found himself becoming desperate to lay eyes on another Time Lord even after all this time and all that he'd done.

Seven noted the obvious change in demeanor of the alien this time and understood what the news meant. "I am sorry," she said as sincere as she could be.

"Bah. It's just as well." He waved away the depressing emotions as if they were a mere nuisance, he smiled at her. "Hey, I could use your help with this." He nodded toward the containment core. "What do you say?"

With a raised eyebrow, she pulled out her tricorder from its belt case. "Certainly."

.

.

After good night's rest, B'Elanna sat at her work station in Engineering performing a final system diagnostic. Once it was complete, she turned around to the TARDIS entrance behind her and called through the blue box's open doors. "Doctor, I'm ready for the transfer."

Tom, with the Doctor's begrudged permission, had the TARDIS rotated so that the doors faced the warp core, and more specifically, his short-tempered, Klingon girlfriend's work station.

He'd made this decision after the Doctor childishly refused to use his combadge because '_she's right outside the door_', even though considering the dimensionally transcendental interior of the TARDIS, communication wasn't really the easiest when she sat behind the box.

The Doctor, at the console of his time machine, read over the circular language currently displaying information on the monitor. "Here we go," he said with cheery enthusiasm and pulled a large brass lever down until it snapped into an equally large metal clip.

The TARDIS shuddered slightly and emitted a low hum in response, but seemed to accept the transfer with no objections. The Time Lord was beside himself. "Oh, I do love it when things go according to plan!" He dashed out the door to the containment core with the sonic in hand and joined Seven of Nine in giving it a quick scan.

Looking up from her tricorder with a neutral expression. "The singularity is successfully contained."

The Doctor came to the same conclusion with the sonic. "Brilliant!" He exclaimed as he gave a shocked Seven a celebratory hug. "We have got ourselves a time machine Voyager!"

B'Elanna reported their success to the Bridge and was given the command to proceed.

"I could use your help, come on!" Tthe Doctor grabbed Seven by the hand.

Before she could protest, he ran back into the TARDIS with her in tow. She had no choice but to follow him up to the console where he released her hand and proceeded to give her quick instructions, all the while she glared at him with scrutinizing eyes.

Whether the Doctor chose to ignore the glare or missed it completely is unknown as he jumped in front of the monitor. After pushing a button and flipping a small switch, he gave Seven a manic grin. "Allons-y!" He shouted and pulled the control lever.

.

.

On Voyager's Bridge, Captain Kathryn Janeway sat in her chair alongside Commander Chakotay with her gaze fixed on the view screen. Everyone watched the rapidly swirling patterns of the time vortex accompanied by the whooshing screech sound of the TARDIS' engines. Janeway couldn't help but smile. This was it. They were finally making it home after five years in the Delta Quadrant.

Suddenly, the ship shuddered and the vibrant colors of the vortex were replaced by a normal looking field of stars. The captain slowly rose to her feet in anticipation. "Where are we, Mr. Paris?" she asked and held her breath.

A brief moment passed before he answered, but to Kathryn, it felt like hours. "We're still in the Delta Quadrant," he said with a sigh. The air of excitement in the room plummeted to disappointment.

"Well?" Chirped the Doctor's cheerful voice over the com. "Did we make it? Are we at Earth?"

"No, Doctor," Janeway said in a saddened voice. "We're still in the Delta Quadrant."

"_What_?" He exclaimed in disbelief. "No. Wait. Where?"

"The Delta Quadrant."

"Yes, yes, but _where_? Oh and more importantly, _when_?"

The captain looked at her helmsman for an answer.

With a deep sigh, Tom tapped a couple of buttons on his panel. "It's still 2376, but we're ten thousand light years from where we started. Away from Earth."

The captain stared at him in controlled shock as he continued. "And…we're back in Borg space."

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'm glad you like the last chapter, Imperator President :)**

**So nice to have a day to write! Here is another chapter!**

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><p>"Red alert!" Captain Janeway said. "Scan the area for Borg ships."<p>

"Aye, captain," Ensign Kim said and after a few moments, he unfortunately had something to report. "I have one. A cube and it's on an intercept course."

"On screen," she said with a grim tone. "Let's hope the Queen still isn't upset with us after our last meeting."

The view screen instantly showed a field of stars with a tiny Borg cube slowly growing larger.

"Time to intercept?" she asked.

"Ten minutes," the Ensign said.

"Tom, get us out of here. Warp nine."

"Yes, ma'am." Tom Paris pushed a couple of buttons on the panel and Voyager's engines started to power up, but then unexpectedly powered back down. The ship wasn't moving. Tom shook his head. "The engines aren't responding."

"Janeway to Engineering. What happened, B'Elanna?" Janeway said with urgency over the com.

"The engines went offline for no apparent reason, captain," the engineer said. "But, we're working in it."

"You've got ten minutes, Lieutenant. Janeway out."

.

.

Borg. The Doctor heard the announcement over his combadge. He'd read about them from Voyager's computer. A bio-mechanical species with the never ending goal of converting all life in the universe into mindless automatons. Similar to the Cybermen, he thought, and just as despicable.

Of all the dangerous species to meet in this universe, it had to be the Borg. While he was completely aware of the threat the Borg posed to this one lone ship, he had to admit he found this exciting. After all, this is what he lived for.

"Did she say ten minutes?" The Doctor crunched his eyebrows and asked Seven of Nine with a hint of panic in his voice.

She studied the time traveler's expression a moment before replying in her calm, even tone. "Affirmative."

The Doctor tugged on the bottom of his jacket to straighten it out. "Oh. Well, alright then."

Seven kept her eyes focused on him as he reached into his brown, pinstriped jacket and pulled out a pair of dark rimmed glasses.

Sliding the glasses on, the Time Lord read information displayed on the monitor with a serious expression. "Why didn't it work?" he asked himself with frustration. "There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't have worked. But there has to be a reason. Think!" He ran his fingers through his hair leaving it standing on end in several directions, his mind racing through a million thoughts a second.

Seven scanned the console with her tricorder and frowned slightly. "There doesn't appear to be a malfunction here." She turned and headed out of the TARDIS to stand next to the singularity containment core. "There is no malfunction here either," she said aloud after a couple of passes with the tricorder. She now looked just perplexed as the Doctor.

"I know," B'Elanna said from her computer console in front of the warp core. "I can't find anything wrong with the engines. I've run a complete diagnostic. Nothing." She raised her hands in frustration.

"I need warp, B'Elanna." The captain's stern voice sounded over the com.

The chief engineer sighed and tapped her combadge. "I'm sorry, captain, but I still can't find anything wrong with the engines. I've checked the plasma conduits, gel packs, and scanned the connections in between. The engines are just not responding."

"We have two minutes until the Borg intercept. Janeway out."

"Understood." She exchanged grim glances with Seven.

"There is something very, very wrong here," the Doctor said flatly as he stood in the doorway of the TARDIS. "My presence in this universe with a functioning TARDIS is wrong. The misdirected vortex jump and the engine failure are wrong. Yes, something is very wrong here, but what _is it_?" He hissed the words as he stared up to the ceiling in thought.

"We must do something." Seven stated as a reminder of the grave situation they were in.

"Yes." The Doctor spun on his heel and ran back into the TARDIS. "There is something we can do," he called out, "run!" He frantically pulled stoppers and flicked switches on the console, and then smiled as the engines hum grew louder.

The Time Lord's smile dropped when the engines suddenly died down and became silent. "What? No!" He just couldn't believe this was happening. His eyes scanned the console wildly with his hands on his head, but there was nothing to fix because nothing was broken.

The flustered Time Lord looked out the door to suggest an idea to B'Elanna, when he saw a green swirling field of light fill the door frame, then vanish. "What? Was that?" he asked.

"A Borg transporter beam," Seven said as she marched up to the time machine's console. "They attempted to transport your ship, but failed."

"They want the TARDIS?" he said more to himself then to the ex-Borg as he mentally worked out why. "Of course! She's a living, time traveling ship that can be assimilated." He realized with horror and glanced at the open doors. "Oh, how they would love to get this technology. I have to close those doors. Help me!"

He grabbed the handle of a large brass lever and shoved it to an upright position. Checking the monitor, he was satisfied that the singularity was back in the heart of his beloved ship. He and the reformed Borg drone set to work disconnecting the cables and hoses that currently blocked the doors.

.

.

"We're being scanned," Ensign Kim said from his station on the Bridge.

Janeway, sitting in the captain's chair, waved a dismissal hand and kept her gaze on the view screen. "Let them."

The air in the room was thick with tension as the crew waited for any indication of what the Borg's next move was going to be.

"Captain!" Called the chief engineer over the com. "The Borg just tried to transport the TARDIS!"

"Shields up," Captain Janeway said as she jumped to her feet.

"Shields are up on a rotating frequency," the Vulcan said.

"They're hailing us," Kim said.

"Alright, Mr. Kim, let's see what they have to say," she straightened her uniform as she gazed at the Borg ship filling the view screen.

The image flickered and showed the interior of the cube. In the center of the screen was a domed, bronze turret styled machine with two clear, cup-like protrusions coming off either side of the dome. There was the impression that there was more to the machine, but it was hidden by the limited size of the viewer. Several black hoses haphazardly hung from underneath the dome and ran along a camera stalk aimed at the view screen. The green light inside the camera lens shrank in size then filled the lens once again, as if it were adjusting its focus.

The officers on Voyager's Bridge exchanged glances of grim wonder for they had never seen anything like this from the Borg.

"What is that?" Tom said.

"We accidently ended up in your space again." Janeway smiled as she spoke with a pleasant, yet stern tone. "And we will simply be on our wa-"

"Designation Kathryn Janeway." The Borg machine interrupted. As it spoke with the voice of thousands speaking as one, both the protrusions on its dome flashed with green light.

The captain stopped and raised an eyebrow at the interruption. "You have a time and relative dimension in space ship." It continued as Janeway swallowed knowing exactly the ship the Borg spoke of. "You will launch the TARDIS machine into space or you will be assimilated."

"Oh, I think you know what my answer is going to be." The captain smiled as she quickly waved her hand, a gesture Ensign Kim knew to mean to cut off the outside communication. The view screen's image changed back to the Borg ship.

Janeway faced her Bridge crew. "Options?"

"We still can't go to warp." Ensign Paris shook his head after a failed attempt. "But we do have impulse power."

"Captain," Tuvok spoke and picked up a phaser, "I'm reading Borg intruders in Engineering."

.

.

Seven of Nine and the Doctor quickly developed a system of disconnecting the hoses and cables. He used the sonic to unlock them, she twisted them apart. The two were crouched over the last two connected hoses near the foot of the TARDIS console. He looked up at her and regarded the blonde woman for a moment, focusing on the implant above her eye.

"You were a Borg," he said with a sympathetic, but curious tone.

She paused to look him in the eye. "Yes."

"How were you saved?"

"Captain Janeway liberated me from the Collective and with the Doctor's," she paused and raised her eyebrow, "the holographic doctor's help, most of the implants have been removed."

"Most?"

"I was a child when I was assimilated. I was Borg for so long, some implants needed to remain for me to function correctly."

He couldn't help but have a sense of pity for this woman forever doomed to have chunks of machine in her body, but he also felt a strong admiration for her because every day she fought to become just a little more human.

"Doctor!" B'Elanna yelled in alarm from her console.

The Time Lord jumped to his feet at the sight of a Borg drone standing just outside the TARDIS. It stood there a moment, slowly moving its head as it looked around the console room. Then it took a step inside and the Doctor ran forward, pointing his sonic at the drone. The tool squealed as the blue light shone and the drone's body stiffened, falling backwards and landing on the floor with a thud.

"Come on!" The Doctor grabbed the hoses and cables under his arm and ran out the TARDIS with them.

Seven followed closely behind him and once in Engineering, she pulled the time machine's doors closed. She looked down at the unconscious Borg at her feet. "What did you do?" she asked with curiosity.

"Oh, just jumbled those computer circuits wired into his brain," he said with a smug smile. "He'll be out for a while."

"Look out!"

The Doctor twirled around and came face to face with another Borg drone. There was a phaser shot and the drone's eye closed as it fell to the floor from the blast.

The Time Lord shot a horrified look at B'Elanna. "You didn't have to do that!" He exclaimed in shock and anger.

"Would you rather be assimilated?" She retorted in a huff.

"Of course not, but you didn't have to kill him, B'Elanna," he said nearly snarling at the Klingon.

She walked up to him and smacked a phaser into his hand. "That is not a he, it's an _it,_ Doctor," she pointed to the drone she shot, "and unfortunately, it is the answer because for whatever reason, the Borg want your ship and they _will not_ stop until they get it."

The Doctor stared at her, fuming in anger, as she gave him a hard gaze for a moment before turning back to her console. He remained silent as he looked down at the phaser in his hand and struggled with an inner turmoil. He detested violence and he most certainly didn't like the weapons that went with it, whatever form they may take. However, he sighed and dropped the phaser into his jacket pocket. It has a stun setting, after all, and that could be useful later.

The young Vulcan named Vorik jogged up to the chief engineer. "I regret to inform you that the Borg have taken Carey and Dalby," he said in a typical calm Vulcan tone.

While a saddened B'Elanna made the report to the Bridge, the Doctor clenched his fists and made a silent vow.

.

.

"Lieutenant Carey and Crewman Dalby have been abducted from Engineering," Tuvok said with a hint of sorrow in his voice.

Janeway closed her eyes at the news and drew a deep breath.

"The Borg are hailing us, captain," Kim said trying to hide his worry.

"On screen," she said with a slight growl in her throat as she faced the viewer that showed the strange, domed machine.

"You will release my cr-" she started with the anger clear in her voice.

"You are irrelevant." It interrupted her again. The green lights on its dome flashed in time with the syllables as it spoke. "We will negotiate with the Doctor."

"The Doctor?" She was angry, confused, and was beginning to wonder how the Borg knew the Time Lord by his moniker.

"We will negotiate with the Doctor." The Borg repeated. "You have sixty seconds to comply." The screen's image flickered and resumed a display of the Borg cube.

Janeway sighed and tapped her communicator. "Janeway to the Doctor. The Borg would like to speak to you."

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you for the lovely review, LonelyEnough, I appreciate your kind words.**

**Sorry this chapter took a bit longer for me to post, I needed to pin down exactly how the story was going to go where I wanted it to. Enjoy!**

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><p>This is an interesting situation, the Doctor thought as he rode the turbolift to the Bridge. On the one hand, the Borg knows who he is, and that is bad. When he imagined what the Borg could do with his knowledge as a Time Lord, he shuddered. On the other hand, the Borg knows who he is, and that is good. His reputation of protecting humans against these sorts of threats could work in his favor. But there was also that nagging feeling that something wasn't right. No, there was something seriously amiss here; he wished he could figure it out.<p>

The turbolift came to a halt and the doors parted open with a friendly hiss. The Doctor, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, strode onto the Bridge giving a nod to Tuvok as he headed to the handrail that ran behind the captain and commander chairs.

"Doctor." Captain Janeway gave him a nod as he approached her standing in front of her chair with her arms crossed. She gazed at the image of the Borg cube on the main viewer. "Perhaps you can tell me," she took a step toward the Doctor as she continued in a no-nonsense tone, "how the Borg know who you are and about your time ship."

"I wish I could tell you, Kathryn," the Doctor said wearing a look that suggested he was wondering the same thing. "Borg doesn't exist in my universe, and I certainly have never been to this one before. It is possible that a Time Lord may have been here at some point, but dropping _my_ name? Not very likely at all."

"If a Time Lord was here, he or she could have been assimilated." Chakotay postulated.

He shook his head dismissively. "No. If that were true, the Borg would have destroyed the universe already. We know that didn't happen because you're all still here."

The captain nodded in agreement. "Then maybe that domed machine the Borg have been talking through might offer some clues."

"Domed machine?" the Doctor asked with intense curiosity.

Tom Paris turned around in his seat. "Yeah, it has flashing lights on the top and a camera eye. Kinda looks like something out of my Captain Proton program. We've never seen it before."

"Maybe you'll know what it is when you see it, Doctor. Mr. Kim, open a channel," she said and faced the view screen. "Borg ship, the Doctor is here to speak with you."

Nearly instantly, the view screened displayed the domed machine.

"What?" The Doctor couldn't believe his eyes. "What?" He said again as he fought through the shock of seeing his enemy where his enemy shouldn't be. "No! Can't be! Dalek…what?"

Every officer on the Bridge had their eyes on the Doctor, especially the captain, who looked on him expecting an explanation. She was about to ask for that explanation when suddenly the Time Lord vaulted over the handrail and ran up to the view screen.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here, Dalek?" He pointed an accusing finger, and an anger of centuries reshaped his demeanor.

On the view screen, the camera stalk tracked the Doctor's movement and the green light inside shrank to focus. "Designation Doctor," it said evenly. "You will launch the TARDIS machine into space or you will be assimilated."

The Time Lord opened his mouth and paused as he regarded the Dalek. "No," he said finally with exaggerated defiance and counter-demanded. "Tell me how you got to this universe."

"Your requests are irrelevant," the Dalek said flatly in its own voice overlapped with the voice of thousands. "You will comply."

"Answer me, Dalek!" the Time Lord said with such a fury, the captain was genuinely surprised that such a normally jovial man could harbor such hate. That Dalek must have done something truly horrible, she determined.

"Come on!" He taunted. "What crack in the Void did you _crawl_ through? Eh? How did _you_ end up with _them_?"

The Dalek remained patiently silent through the Doctor's outburst, but it simply repeated its demand. "You will comply."

The Doctor's posture slowly relaxed as he regarded his old enemy. When he spoke, his voice was rife with sympathy. "You've been turned into a mindless Borg drone. I'm not even talking to a Dalek, am I?"

The green light inside the Dalek's camera eye expanded and contracted, but the Dalek stayed silent.

The Doctor stared into the lens, magnified to a giant size on the viewer. "Let me help you," he said with sincerity. "All of you, to become what you once were. You know I can. Will you let me?" With a hopeful look, he waited for the assimilated Dalek's response.

"Eject the TARDIS machine into space. Comply."

He closed his eyes and sighed in disappointment. "You can't have the TARDIS," he said and as soon as he spoke those words, the Borg Dalek ended the communication. The Doctor thought about how he's dealt with such threats in the past, and normally the one chance ultimatum worked rather well.

In this case, however, individual Borg are merely drones, doing what they're programmed to do by a single Borg Queen, much like the Cybermen and their Cyberking. He thought of Seven of Nine, and his personal vow to free the Borg.

"Doctor," Janeway said in a curious tone, "can you tell me about Dalek?"

"Dalek is not a person, but a species in my universe driven by only by hate and lived for only thing, extermination of all life," the Doctor said solemnly as he kept his eyes fixed on the viewer. "There was a war between my people and the Daleks that ended…well, both sides lost." He turned away from the large screen and cupped his chin in his hand in thought. "I need to find out how it got here and close it. This universe doesn't need more of them."

The captain had more questions for the Time Lord, but suddenly an explosion echoed though Voyager's bulkhead and the ship lurched violently, knocking everyone standing down to their knees. Instantly, the alert siren sounded. "Warning. Hull breech on Deck seven." The computer's voice echoed over the com system.

"Captain," Tuvok held on to the console with one hand and operated the controls with the other, "the cube is firing a drill beam that penetrated our shields."

The ship was now shuddering steadily and a low rumbling noise could be heard.

"On screen," she said as she and the Doctor climbed back to their feet and looked at the viewer.

The new view of the Borg ship showed a white beam emanating from the upper left corner of the cube. The beam remained focused on Voyager right above Main Engineering sending pieces of the ship scattering into space.

"Raise shields to maximum," she said to the Tactical officer.

"Shields are at maximum, captain," Tuvok said. "And they have no effect in stopping the drill."

"Dalek technology," the Doctor said aloud to no one in particular as he realized what the beam had reminded him of.

"Lock phasers on the source of the beam and fire!" The commander called out.

Outside, the phaser charge points travelled down the track on Voyager's saucer and fired a steady orange beam at the source of the drill on the Borg cube. The Bridge watched as the phaser dispersed harmlessly against a field of white and green patterned light.

"Phasers had no effect." Tuvok reported remaining stoic as ever.

While the scene played out, the Doctor was thinking, formulating a plan. Captain Janeway asked Tom if the engines were online. He sadly reported that they were not, and that impulse power was not enough to break free of the beam. Chakotay ordered a volley of photon torpedoes, a full spread, also to no effect. Where Voyager's weapons and shields were once effective against the Borg, the introduction of the Dalek rendered Voyager helpless. "Come on, think!" the Doctor grabbed at his hair as he looked up to the ceiling mentally putting pieces of an idea together.

B'Elanna reported an evacuation of Engineering, and then the rumbling and shaking ceased. From the upper right hand corner of the Borg cube, the green light field of a tractor beam surrounded the TARDIS and began to pull her out of the belly of Voyager. The containment field the computer automatically erected to cover the hull breech did nothing to stop the tractor beam.

"The Borg is using a tractor beam to extract the TARDIS," Tuvok said as he quickly pressed buttons on the panel. "I'm attempting to reroute all available power to the aft shields."

"Deflector dish!" the Doctor said suddenly. He looked at Janeway with a wild excitement in his eye and pulled out his sonic. "If I reconfigure the deflector dish to the sonic frequency of the ol' screwdriver here," he twirled it in his fingers, "I bet the Borg will have a bit of trouble breaking through the shields."

Janeway, a bit desperate of the situation and completely trusting of the Doctor, nodded her approval. The Time Lord immediately dashed around to the Tactical station. Tuvok politely stepped aside as the Doctor held the sonic above the computer panel and turned it on. The lighted buttons flickered as the sonic injected the new configuration.

"Come on, come on!" The agitated Time Lord shook in impatience. He held the activated sonic over the console as he frantically tapped the buttons.

"Doctor!" Tom shouted.

The Time Lord looked up and clenched his jaw as he watched his TARDIS, caught in the tractor beam, being maneuvered to a bay door near the center of the cube.

"No!" He slammed a fist on the panel in frustration and anger. "Not enough time!"

Voyager rocked from a powerful phaser blast from the Borg cube. One of the computer panels along the back wall exploded in a fountain of sparks.

"Direct hit!" Tuvok stepped up to his console next to the Doctor, who made room for the Vulcan. "Shields and weapons have no effect."

"Captain, the warp engines just came back online!" Tom nearly cheered.

"Get us out of here!" Janeway exclaimed in relief of the last minute good news. Voyager swung about, lifted the warp nacelles and shot into warp vanishing in a flash of white light.

"The Borg are not pursuing." Enisgn Kim reported sounding quite pleased.

"All stop." She ordered and turned to the Doctor. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Kathryn." The Time Lord offered a small smile that faltered as he continued. "But the TARDIS was part of my plan to rescue your crew. Now that the Borg have her, we'll have to move quickly. There isn't much that can break those doors of hers, but I don't want to take any chances. If the Borg assimilate her and gain time travel, they'll destroy all life everywhere and every when."

"I agree, Doctor," Chakotay said, joining the conversation. "But we're seriously outclassed against this Dalek technology."

"Ooohh, I wouldn't say that, Chakotay." A cheeky grin grew across the Doctor's face. "You have something more powerful than anyone has ever seen on this side of the universe…me."

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This chapter has some Trekkie drama, but it wouldn't be a ST crossover without it, right?**

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><p>The atmosphere on board the starship was thick with urgency and anticipation of the constant threat that the Borg cube, or any cube for that matter, would suddenly appear and launch another assault on the ship. Long range sensors maintained a constant fix on the cube that abducted the two crewmen and stole the TARDIS. Curiously enough, the cube maintained its position.<p>

For the last four hours, Voyager's crew had been quite busy. Repair crews worked diligently to repair the Bridge, the hull damage from the phaser fire, and of course, the gaping hole in Engineering. The Security teams made offensive and defensive preparations, under Tuvok's direction, for their planned encounter with the Borg, and the Doctor worked non-stop in upgrading Voyager's defenses to sonic technology, a task proving easier said than done.

Sitting cross-legged in front of an access point inside a Jeffery's tube surrounded by a scattering of spare parts and tools, the Doctor chose one of several fiber optic wires draped around his neck and held the end up to the sonic.

"I'm sorry B'Elanna upset you," said Tom Paris while he sat next to the Doctor holding a metallic device closely resembling a torch and looked like it was pieced together with scraps only because it was. A sonic amplifier the Doctor dubbed it. He'd built the amplifier after it was discovered that the sonic screwdriver would have burned out had it actually worked on the shields earlier. One phaser blast and he would have been sonic-less.

"She didn't have to kill that Borg," the Doctor said a bit gruff as he connected the wire to the device in Tom's hand and plugged the other end into a circuit chip slot.

"She did it to protect you. I want you to understand that," Tom said with a pleading tone.

The Doctor turned and faced his friend. "I do understand that. I really do. But the Borg can be saved, just like Seven was."

"Is that what this is about? Saving the Borg?"

"Yes! They are living people that have had their lives stolen," the Time Lord said with conviction. "If those lives can be given back them, don't you think they deserve it?"

Tom studied his friend's face and nodded with a sigh.

"That," the Doctor continued, "and I hate guns. I detest violence too, but I always seem to find myself in the thick of it. Funny that." He finished in a lighter tone and a grin as he took the amplifier from Tom's hand placing it inside the access panel.

"Look, I just don't want you to hate B'Elanna." Tom wore the look of someone defending the one he loved well.

"Tom, she made me angry, that's all, and now I know what she's capable of." He shrugged his shoulder dismissively. "It's good to know those things about people. Besides, I'd like for us stay mates, you have a Captain Proton holo program to show me, yeah?"

The Ensign smirked with a soft chuckle. "Yeah," he said. "I think you're going to love it."

"Stopping an evil, death ray wielding emperor definitely sounds like my kind of holiday," the Doctor said with a laugh as he waved the sonic over the amplifier. The device made a click sound and a series of lights on the top of it started flashing. "Ah ha! At last!" He exclaimed at his success.

He tapped his combadge and asked the Bridge to 'fire up' the deflector dish. The brass Starfleet symbol on the Doctor's lapel was starting to grow on him. At first, he didn't like it because uniforms and insignias have never been his cup of tea, especially after dealing with the likes of UNIT. However, as he learned about Starfleet and the Federation, he was actually quite proud of the human race for founding such an organization built on peace and exploration.

The Tactical officer on the Bridge covering for Tuvok reported that the deflector was online and that the shields were now on a fluctuating sonic frequency.

"Good work, Doctor." Tom gave the happy Time Lord a pat on the shoulder.

"Time Lord technology at its finest," the Doctor said proudly. "And I didn't even have to use the hammer."

Tom laughed and started crawling down the Jeffery's tube. "Come on, we still have to fine tune the deflector to emit that pulse you wanted."

"Right-o," he said cheerily as he quickly tossed the tools and spare parts into a sack. He tucked his sonic in a pocket and followed his friend toward the hatch.

.

.

A couple of hours later, the Doctor and Tom stood at the Tactical station on the Bridge configuring the computer for the new sonic frequency. Tom's fingers tapped gently on the control console. The Doctor, wearing his glasses, hunched over a screen full of scrolling text and diagrams on the wall monitor behind Tom.

"How about now?" Tom paused and twisted around to look at the monitor over the Doctor's shoulder.

The Time Lord squinted and stood up abruptly. "That should do it. Let's give it try!"

Tom turned back around and pressed a couple of buttons. "Firing the sonic pulse…now."

Voyager shuddered ever so slightly and both men looked at the main viewer to see a ripple-like distortion wave spread wider the farther it travelled from the ship. "It worked perfectly," Tom said. "And all systems are still functioning properly."

"That's what I like to hear!" The Doctor gave Tom a friendly shove in celebration.

"Definitely short range though," Tom said after a chuckle. "The wave is already at half strength after only three hundred meters."

Captain Janeway strode up to the Tactical station and upon seeing the smiles on her Ensign and the eccentric Doctor, she smiled too. "How's the upgrades coming along?" she asked.

"All done," the Doctor said feeling overly proud. "Although I'd recommend having someone stay by the amplifier with a hammer, just in case it needs some convincing."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said with a soft chuckle.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," he took off his glasses and made to step around the computer console, "I need to get ready."

"About that, Doctor." The captain moved to block his path.

"We went over this, Kathryn." He huffed slightly and gave her a stern look.

"Well, I'm sorry, Doctor," she matched his steady gaze, "but you don't get to make that kind of decision for us and run out of the room to keep us from saying otherwise."

"Kathr-" he started to say, but Janeway held up her hand to interrupt him.

"Those are my crewmen over there, Doctor," she said with authority. "I will not let you go over there alone. You might be used to doing things on your own, but here we work as a team and as long as you're involved with this, you are a part of that team."

"Oh," he said with a thoughtful frown. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" He gave a cheeky grin.

For an ever so brief a moment, the captain wanted to slap this incorrigible alien. However, she refrained herself because she did fully understand that he was being stubborn to protect her and her crew, and she appreciated that. However, she had a duty to her ship and everyone on board, including the Doctor.

"Good," she said and smiled.

"Well, I need to get to work on some personal protection fields." He moved to the turbolift as Janeway stepped aside. Tom followed behind him, but almost slammed in the Time Lord, who suddenly stopped and turned. "Oh, I guess I need to how many I'm building?" he asked Janeway.

"Tuvok, Seven, and I are going with you," she said.

"You?" The Doctor was a bit surprised. "Isn't it custom for captains to stay with their ship?"

"Try telling her that." Tom muttered under his breath.

"I've got some experience in dealing with the Borg," Janeway said a bit smugly. "The Queen and I have gone toe to toe before."

"Now that sounds like a story," he said brightly. "Care to join us for in the 'personal protection field workshop'? I just made that up and you know, it is rather catchy if I don't say so myself."

Janeway laughed. "Don't mind if I do."

.

.

Down in Cargo Bay One, where Seven of Nine's regeneration chamber was built, Tom, Seven and Kathyrn learned how to build sonic personal protection fields from the Doctor. They were gathered around an impromptu workbench Seven quickly assembled for the project.

The Doctor rather enjoyed Kathryn's tale of how she outsmarted the Borg Queen on apparently several occasions. What an adventure. He was impressed not only by her bravery and cleverness, but of same bravery of all of Voyager's crew. He found himself seriously considering staying on this ship and exploring this strange, new universe with them. Never had he been surrounded by so many like-minded individuals. Could he be _their_ companion, he wondered.

He held up an octagon-shaped disc about the size of his hand. "One. Personal protection field. Ah. Ah. Ah," he said impersonating a certain famous puppet.

Tom started laughing, Kathryn chuckled lightly even though she didn't really get the reference, and Seven stared at the Doctor like he was craziest person she'd ever met.

"Is that from that twentieth century show with the puppets?" Tom asked. "Oh what was it called?"

"Yes! Sesame Street," said the Doctor. "The name of the puppet was the Count. Great tele program for kids. My granddaughter loved it."

Everyone at the table paused at the Doctor's comment.

"Granddaughter?" Kathryn implored.

He realized he'd gotten carried away with the memory and what he'd inadvertently let slip out. "Yes. A long time ago," he said with a tinge of sadness. He looked at their faces of marked with disbelief. "What?" he asked.

"It's just you look so…" Tom faltered, unsure how to finished the sentence without sounding completely rude.

"Young?" the Doctor finished for him with a shrug of his shoulder. "You should have seen me back then."

"Out of curiosity, Doctor," Seven said as she resumed work on a disc. "What is the lifespan of your species?"

"I really don't know for sure, quite honestly," he said thoughtfully. "There was a Time Lord said to have lived for seven thousand years and he died only because he wanted too. So, I'd say a very long time barring any accidents, of course."

"Fascinating," she said and then she held up her field emitter. "This emitter is complete."

"Two! Personal protection field emitters. Ah. Ah. Ah." The Doctor held up two fingers trying to hold back a laugh which was difficult considering Kathryn and Tom were laughing.

Seven glared at him in annoyance. "Are you going to say that every time?"

"Yes, Seven. I am."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: the action with the Borg picks up next chapter!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Happy reading!**

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><p>Captain Kathryn Janeway, Lieutenant Tuvok and Seven of Nine stood in the transporter room checking their phaser settings, tucking tricorders onto their belts, and adjusting the harness on their personal protection fields. Finally, they were ready. While Tuvok was ever stoic and the captain wore a neutral expression, Seven was growing agitated.<p>

"Where is the Doctor?" she said finally with impatience strong in her voice. "I told him to meet us here at fifteen hundred hours."

"Relax, Seven," Kathryn smiled at Seven's obsession with promptness, "it's only one minute past."

Seven raised her hand to tap on her communicator when the door slid open and the Doctor entered carrying the sonic in one hand held up to a phaser in the other hand. He was not wearing his overcoat, but he was wearing a protection field over his suit jacket.

"Sorry, I'm late," he said as he rushed up to the transporter pad. "But I figured out I could convert these to sonic too." With a smile, he aimed the phaser at the wall and fired. A barely visible wave of distortion rippled through the air and dissipated after only a couple of feet.

He handed the modified phaser to Seven. "That was the lowest setting," he said as she took the phaser and examined it. "They should reach about twenty feet. Oh and I have one for each of you."

The Time Lord reached into his front jacket pocket, impossibly produced a second phaser and gave it to Kathryn. The Doctor did not notice the bewildered expression the captain wore as he pulled yet another phaser from the same pocket for Tuvok.

"Explain." Seven demanded with scrutinizing curiosity.

"It was simple really. I rewired a couple pathways to accept a new frequency," he said happily holding a finger over the phaser in Seven's hand demonstrating where he did the work. "Then I used the sonic to store that energy into the phaser and viola! A non-lethal, sonic phaser that Dalek shields are powerless to stop." The Doctor popped the 'p' and grinned.

"I meant your pocket," the ex-Borg said flatly.

"Oh! I didn't tell you about dimensionally transcendental pockets?" He paused as both Seven and Kathryn shook their heads and Tuvok raised an eyebrow of curiosity.

"Well then! Dimensionally transcendental pockets," he held a pocket open and took a step closer so his audience could see inside, "are bigger on the inside then the outside. Like the rooms in the TARDIS. You see, the TARDIS produces my clothes for me, and she's kind enough to include dimensionally transcendental pockets otherwise I have no idea how I would carry around all the things that might be in these pockets."

"Fascinating." Tuvok commented with about as much interest as possible for a Vulcan.

Seven nodded with a slight frown though she seemed genuinely impressed.

"Well," Kathryn drew in a deep breath, "unless there's anything else, Doctor, I think we're ready to engage the Borg."

The Doctor shook his head and moved into place on the transporter with the other three.

Kathryn glanced up to the ceiling out of habit. "Janeway to the Bridge. We're ready."

"Alright, captain," said Chakotay's voice. "As soon as we've disabled their shields, we'll beam you over."

"Understood." Kathryn nodded.

"Good luck. Chakotay out."

The transporter room fell silent as the team mentally prepared for the confrontation just minutes away. Tuvok, Seven and Kathryn wore solemn expressions as they stood with the modified phasers in hand. The Doctor casually shoved his hands in his trouser pockets looking thoughtful.

"Engage," he said breaking the silence. "Funny term that is, when you think about it. I mean, we're not getting married to them, are we? We're just launching the greatest rescue plan in all the galaxies. Can we say 'we're ready to rescue the Borg' instead?"

.

.

Voyager dropped out of warp a short distance away from the Borg cube that still had not moved from its position. Quickly, the ship approached the cube. Sensors revealed that the cube's shields were raised, but it was not charging weapons. So far, so good.

The Federation ship came to a full stop a couple hundred meters away from the Borg vessel and activated the sonically modified deflector dish. A narrow beam of rippled distortion travelled through space and quickly reached the shields of the Borg ship. A field of green light sparkled briefly then vanished.

In immediate response, the cube opened fire and struck Voyager on the tip of its saucer section, a direct hit on the hull. The starship returned phaser fire and managed to destroy the enemy's phaser bank. But the Borg cube fired a phaser blast from a secondary source, only this time the attack dissipated harmlessly off an invisible barrier that rippled like water from the strike. The cube fired a second time with the same result. There was not a third assault, and both ships held their positions in silence.

.

.

When Kathryn, Tuvok, Seven and the Doctor materialized in a hallway on the Borg ship, Kathryn and Tuvok raised their hand phasers defensively and quickly took in their immediate surroundings, there appeared to be no Borg nearby.

The Doctor activated his sonic and quickly waved it around in all directions as the device softly squealed scanning for the TARDIS.

Seven made for a computer panel on the wall and reached out to touch it when the circular patterns flashed randomly. She paused and realized her protection field was causing interference, so she turned the field off and began tapping the circular buttons.

After a moment, she stepped away from the panel, switched her field back on and returned to the group. "Lieutenant Carey and Crewman Dalby have been assimilated," she said in a grim tone. "They are currently in adjunct four which is-"

"This way." The Doctor finished aiming the sonic down the menacing corridor. "The TARDIS is down there too."

"Correct." Seven agreed.

"Alright." The captain gritted her teeth. "Let's go."

Quickly but quietly, Kathryn led them down the hose-covered corridor, her phaser in front of her and her senses on high alert. They came to a four way intersection and the Doctor quickly scanned all the options. After a brief moment, he side stepped the captain and headed down the corridor to the right.

They were making good time, and there was no sign of any drones. Then the Doctor abruptly stopped and examined a drone he found regenerating in an alcove. He scanned the drone with his sonic and looked back to Kathryn. "Definitely asleep," he said quietly.

She nodded and the team moved on.

"We are almost at adjunct four," Seven said from behind the captain.

The four slowed to a walk in unison and crept down the corridor. The Doctor tensed and stopped. He waved a hand behind him telling those following him to be quiet as he focused on the hallway before him.

At first there only thing to hear was the monotone sounds common of the Borg ship. Then there was no mistaking it, the sounds of heavy booted feet stomping on the metal grate floor grew louder as at least one drone was heading toward them from around the corner of another corridor junction.

Tuvok moved from the rear of the group and stood in front of the Doctor aiming his phaser in the direction of the oncoming footsteps. Finally the drone appeared. It stepped into the corridor, turned toward the group, and resumed its march, walking right past the intruders as if they weren't there.

The Vulcan nodded his head toward their destination and continued down the corridor. The Doctor, Kathryn and Seven followed behind him. At the junction, the Doctor did a quick scan and motioned to continue forward. As they moved along, they were passed by several other Borg drones that paid them no attention at all.

Finally, the foursome reached adjunct four. Sounds echoing from the further down the corridor spoke of some sort of machinery grinding into something metal. The Doctor frowned as his imagination painted a grim picture he didn't like at all.

Tuvok moved slightly ahead and pressed himself to the wall stepping up to the side of an entry way. He quickly turned and peeked around the corner, then flattened himself back against the wall. A drone stepped out of the entry way and walked away down the corridor. The Vulcan motioned the rest of his team over.

"Your ship is in there, Doctor," Tuvok whispered as the Time Lord approached.

Curiosity danced in the Doctor's eyes, he had to see his TARDIS. He stepped past the security chief and looked into the room where his ship was being kept, his eyes widened. There was nothing he could do but stand there in awe at the massive operation the Borg constructed just to break into the time ship.

The TARDIS stood in the middle of a large area and at first glance, appeared to be broken. The rotating light on her roof had been removed and lay discarded off to the side of the room. Where the light used to be was instead a connected thick, black hose that ran up disappearing into the nest of hoses and wires drooping from the ceiling. The police box signs on all the sides the Doctor could see had also been removed and were now laying on the floor occasionally getting stepped on by the drones as they moved around. The light bulbs inside the sign fixtures were discarded and a wire bundle was connected to each socket, the cables draping down the sides of the TARDIS.

All around the blue box were drones. Some stood at the TARDIS door tirelessly attempting to crack the innocent looking brass lock. Others used tools to try to pry out the window panes that still glowed with a soft yellow light. Still more drones wandered the room checking various readouts on panels or making seemingly random adjustments. One drone in particular operated a large robotic arm extended from a wall. The arm was tipped with a spinning metal drill bit that the drone used to grind into the side of the TARDIS sending wood chips and dust flying into the air.

Once the Doctor absorbed the sight of his ship under such assault in this house of horrors, he fought back the rage that threatened to boil over and instead did something wholly unexpected. Ignoring the whispered protests from Kathryn, the Time Lord walked up to the Borg drones at the TARDIS door and tapped on them on the shoulder.

"You'll never get in there without this?" He gave his best cheeky grin and held up a chain with a sparkling key dangling at the end.

The drone looked at the key and reached out to take it when the Doctor held his sonic to the drone's head. The sonic screeched to life and the drone shuddered as it fell to the floor.

Chaos erupted. The Doctor shoved the key back in his pocket and pulled out a modified phaser. Armed with two sonic devices, he quickly disabled the two drones standing right next to him. Jumping over their unconscious bodies, he made for the drone operating the robotic arm.

Meanwhile, Tuvok leapt into action disabling a drone and dodging a white beam of light that flew by just missing his head. He realized he'd momentarily forgotten about his protective field. The Vulcan pinpointed the source of the white laser, a Borg drone with a whisk-like attachment on the end of its right arm. He fired a sonic wave at the drone who responded by falling clumsily to the floor.

Kathryn was right behind Tuvok disabling a couple of drones as she moved closer to the TARDIS. She was hit by the white laser beam and flinched as the beam hit her personal force field. The beam dissipated harmlessly, but with an unnerving sizzling crackle. She glanced on a row of six green lights on the side of the force field disc and noted that all but one was lit.

Seven of Nine held back in the corridor as drones in the immediate area made their way to the room as reinforcements.

The Borg voice of thousands echoed from everywhere in the ship. "Your biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

"They don't seem to be adapting to our weapons!" The captain called out to Tuvok as she disabled another two drones.

He was about to answer her when he noticed a drone reaching for his shoulder. The Vulcan spun on his heel and watched in minor fascination as the Borg's fingers touched the protection field causing ripples in the air, but couldn't reach through it. "Nor our shields," Tuvok said as he casually disabled the drone. "But my protective field is almost out of power."

The grinding sound from the robotic arm suddenly went silent. Tuvok and Kathryn paused to see that the Doctor had disabled the drone operator and shoved the arm away from his ship. He moved on, disappearing around the back of the TARDIS.

Seven ran into the room and reported that there no more drones in the hall. She ducked just in time to avoid a white beam. She tucked and rolled landing on her feet and firing her sonic phaser at the drone that dropped to its knees.

In just a few minutes, it was over. All the Borg drones in the room lay on the floor throughout the room completely immobilized. "Seven, locate the main link to the Collective off this ship," Kathryn said issuing orders. "And Tuvok, help me look for Lieutenant Carey and Crewman Dalby."

"I'll just be fixing up the ol' girl here." The Doctor tossed a relieved smile at the captain as he ran his fingers lovingly across the time ship's side.

Kathryn returned her smile and watched him a moment while he examined the extent of the damage from the drill, which didn't appear to be much more then minor hole in the wood.

By the time Carey and Dalby where located, Seven had the coordinates, and the Doctor removed all the Borg cables and replaced the police box signs. He held the roof light in his hand and let out a sigh. He didn't have time to fix it right then, and a part of him hoped it wasn't a vital part of the TARDIS.

Seven and the Doctor gave Tuvok and Kathryn a hand in carrying the unconscious assimilated crewmen to the door of the TARDIS. Setting them down a moment, the Doctor dug out his key and opened the door. The Doctor shrieked in surprise as a Borg drone materialized inside the TARDIS right in front of him. He quickly used the sonic and disabled the drone.

"Oh, of course! How could I be so thick!" He hissed more at himself then anyone around him. "Hurry!" The Time Lord grabbed Dalby by the arms and started to drag him inside. "The shields keeping them out of the TARDIS are down while the doors are open!"

Understanding immediately, Kathryn and Tuvok moved Carey inside while Seven quickly disabled another drone that transported inside a bit further up the ramp.

The Doctor dropped Dalby then ran to the drone laying half way out of the TARDIS. He jumped outside and picked up the Borg's legs, pulling it out of the way of the doors. "Sorry, friend," he said. "You have to catch the next flight." He was about to leap back in to the TARDIS when he heard a voice that made him stop in his tracks.

"Doc-tor," said the Dalek.

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><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor slowly turned around and stared down the camera stalk of his old enemy, the Dalek. He lowered his arms to his side and couldn't help but feel sorry for the assimilated creature before him. With a sad yet cautious look, he sighed. "Yes?" he asked patiently.

The green light inside the camera eye shrank slightly as it maintained a steady focus on the Time Lord and for a tense moment, the Dalek said nothing and made no move.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow wondering if he was in yet another staring contest with a Dalek. He decided to just walk away.

As he turned, the Dalek fired its weapon. The white beam was right on target and struck the Doctor's protective field. He instinctively flinched under the powerful, original Dalek weapon, but the field held the deadly beam back with a loud crackling.

"Doctor!" Kathryn called out.

He wasn't too concerned about the beam at first, but then he felt it. A burning sensation steadily growing more intense as the beam maintained a constant stream on his protective field.

When the Time Lord started to show he was in pain and began slumping down to his knees, Kathryn took action. She flanked down one side of the Doctor while Tuvok flanked the other.

The Doctor, now on his knees, held up an arm to shield his eyes and started screaming.

The captain and security chief opened fire on the Dalek at the same time, hitting it with a double dose of sonic energy. The Dalek's weapon immediately ceased firing and the Dalek itself moaned and shuddered to stillness.

Kathryn and Tuvok crouched by the Doctor, who hunched over and breathed heavily. The captain gently rested her hand on his shoulder and at her touch; he sat upright and franticly removed the protective field and loosened his tie.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly.

The Time Lord nodded. "That was close," he said between deep breaths. "Thank you."

"Tuvok!" Seven called from the TARDIS.

The Vulcan jumped up and fired a sonic blast at a drone Seven managed to shove out the door.

Seven stepped out of the blue box and closed the door behind her. "Are we continuing with the mission?" she asked in her stern tone.

"Yes," Kathryn said to Seven and turned to the Doctor. "Can you stand?"

He nodded and climbed to his feet.

Kathryn held on to his arm in case he needed the support. "Come on." She started to lead him to the TARDIS when he stopped her, his gaze fixed on the Dalek.

"I have to know," the Doctor whispered with a look of hard determination. He lowered down to one knee in front of the disabled Dalek and ran the head of the sonic screwdriver along the grooves in the mid-section of the metal shell. A click sounded and the front of the Dalek's exterior opened like a flower in bloom.

Kathryn, Tuvok and Seven looked on in curiosity despite the dangerous situation they were in.

The true form of the Dalek was nestled inside the shell just as the Doctor expected. What he didn't expect to see was that a couple of the squid-like alien's tendrils were replaced by Borg implants with tiny Borg tools on the tips. Around the single central eye, small Borg wires dug into the Dalek's pale-blue flesh connecting to Borg nodes mounted inside the shell.

"This will only take a minute," the Doctor said to Kathryn in a soft voice.

She remained silent as he tucked the sonic in his jacket pocket and gently rested his fingertips on the Dalek's head around the single eye.

"Mind meld?" Tuvok whispered to Seven in slight surprise.

The Time Lord closed his eyes, relaxed his features and exhaled.

.

.

The war had raged across time and space for long enough. Today it ends. A massive fleet consisting of ten million ships advanced on the home world of their greatest enemy. Inside the ships, billions of soldiers prepared for the final battle. Each and every soldier, driven by the most seething hatred of everything living, stood in endless ranks patiently waiting to strike.

As the bay doors of the ships finally opened, the armies filed out in a steady stream. One soldier in particular reveled in the anticipation of seeing its beam canon destroy those arrogant Time Lords. It flew into space along side its brethren and headed down to the planet below eagerly awaiting the battle ahead. Today, the war ends. The Daleks would be victorious.

Suddenly in flash of white light, the Dalek soldier was no longer in space. Instead, it was in a corridor covered in black wiring and other dark metal parts. Some areas of the wall had panels lit with glowing green symbols the confused Dalek had never seen before. This a Time Lord trick, the Dalek thought with growing anger. It heard footsteps and rotated its camera stalk around to see a humanoid, outfitted with the same black mechanical parts as the corridor, approaching it.

"Where am I?" The Dalek demanded.

When the humanoid did not respond and continued walking past as if it weren't there, the Dalek rotated its cannon and took aim. "If you do not answer, you will be exterminated!"

The humanoid did not acknowledge the Dalek, so the Dalek kept its promise and fired. The white beam hit its target square in the back and the creature's skeleton flashed brightly before the body collapsed into death.

For a moment, the Dalek was satisfied of its easy kill, but then heard additional footsteps approaching. Moving its camera around, it counted four more of the mechanical creatures steadily walking up to it and scanning it with green lasers.

"We are Borg. Your biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile," said a voice of a thousand voices that seemed to come from nowhere and yet be everywhere.

"You will be exterminated!" The Dalek cried and fired its cannon at one of the drones. The white beam hit a field of green light directly in front of the drone that scattered the deadly energy into harmless particles. Taken aback, the Dalek fired again and again, but caused no damage to the drones that had now adapted to its weapon.

The Dalek had a new species to hate, whatever they were. "Back!" It cried as invading hands reached out. There was nowhere for the Dalek to go, it was trapped and all it could do was watch in horror as the drone's penetrated the Dalek's own shields.

For the first time in its existence, the Dalek felt fear as prying hands forced apart its protective metal hull and revealed its vulnerable form. As nanoprobes were injected into its body and began turning it into something it didn't want to be, the Dalek screamed.

.

.

The Doctor's eyes fluttered open and his vision was blurred with tears that streamed down his cheeks. Even after all he's suffered at the hands of the Daleks, he couldn't bring himself to let a creature suffer. He looked down at the poor, poor Dalek and knew there was only one thing he could do, liberate it from the Collective.

Slowly, he let his hands slip away from the Dalek's head when it reached out and gently wrapped an untainted tendril around the Doctor's wrist. The Time Lord paused and stared incredulously at the gesture.

The Dalek's eye blinked and gave the Doctor an intense, almost pleading look. He covered the tendril with his other hand as a one might comfort a friend. "Don't you worry," he said with a reassuring voice. "I'm the Doctor and I'm going to help you."

_Hello, Doctor_, said a sultry female voice inside his mind.

The Doctor gasped in surprise and flinched back from the Dalek, but did not let go of the tendril. "Who are you?" he asked aloud.

_I am your Queen_, the voice answered and seemed to be mocking him.

"My Queen?" He couldn't believe the audacity of the voice and started to laugh, but choked in realization. With eyes wide in shock, he gawked at the sight of two prongs extending from one of the Dalek's mechanical tendrils buried deep in his wrist. His body was being injected with a flood of nanoprobes.

The Doctor yanked his hand free of the Dalek and tried to jump back, but his legs gave way and he tumbled backwards to the floor. Kathryn, Tuvok and Seven quickly knelt beside the Doctor, and Seven scanned him with a tricorder.

"He's been injected with nanoprobes," Seven said evenly. "But his immune system is fighting to eject them."

Kathryn noticed the Time Lord turn pale and she pressed her hand on his forehead. "He's cold," she said to Seven then looked at the Doctor. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

He shivered and nodded. "My m-metabol..ism will get…t-them out," he said between chattering teeth.

"Ok, we're going to get you into the TARDIS." Kathryn told him and nodded to Seven and Tuvok to help her.

_Come to me, my little Time Lord_, the female voice laughed in the Doctor's mind. He fought to maintain consciousness because he knew he'd have to pilot his time ship to escape. Just as he was about to be carried into the safety of the TARDIS, he vanished in the swirling light of a Borg transporter beam.

.

.

The captain stared in shock where the Doctor was laying just a second ago. Her Starfleet training prevented her from remaining in that shocked state for very long. She climbed to her feet and tugged on her shirt to straighten it. "Seven, can you locate the Doctor?" she asked.

The ex-Borg frowned. "He hasn't been assimilated yet, so I won't be able to use the cube's computer," she said and paused in thought.

"Captain." Tuvok warned as he stared at the chamber entrance and raised his sonic phaser.

Kathryn paused and she could hear what sounded like an army of Borg marching steadily closer. "Get to the TARDIS," she said firmly and moved quickly toward the time ship's doors.

Silently, the captain prayed that the doors of the blue box weren't locked when she grabbed on the handle and pushed. The door yielded and Kathryn ran inside with Tuvok and Seven right behind her.

Seven was about to close the door when she stopped, turned and held her tricorder just over the threshold of the TARDIS door.

"Seven!" The captain called out.

After a few seconds, Seven stepped back and closed the door. "My apologies, captain," she said evenly as she walked up to the console, "but I was able to locate the Doctor's communicator at adjunct one, the center of the cube."

"How far away are we?" Tuvok asked.

"Twenty-four decks above adjunct one," Seven said with a grim look.

"Before he was transported, the Doctor mentioned the Queen," Kathryn said. "It's possible she's in this cube."

"If she were," Seven raised an eyebrow, "she would be in adjunct one."

"Well, we've got to figure out how to get to adjunct one."

"Captain," the Vulcan said. "I do not believe it is wise to attempt to make our way down twenty-four decks. While these modified phasers are effective, our protection shields are nearly drained. I recommend another course of action."

"I agree, Tuvok." The captain nodded and crossed her arms. "The Doctor was going to use this ship to transport us to the link node…maybe we can use it to get to adjunct one."

The three paused and looked at the console simultaneously. Seven sighed and didn't look too confident, but she marched up to the console and stood in front of the monitor. Kathryn and Tuvok joined her.

"This looks like it came from Tom's Captain Proton program," Kathryn said after studying the array of archaic looking buttons, levers and dials on the console.

"The Doctor mentioned that this ship is thousands of years old," Seven said with an intrigued expression. "But if I can decipher these symbols, I may be able to pilot it." Kathryn looked at the monitor and was fascinated by the circular patterns it displayed.

Meanwhile, Tuvok scanned the console with his tricorder in attempt to learn more about how to operate the ship. Without warning, something brushed his mind. He gasped quietly at the unexpected intrusion, but wasn't alarmed. The telepathic intelligence seemed friendly, even helpful. He thought about the Doctor's display of telepathy and raised his eyes to look into the glass column in the center of the console.

"Captain," he said with realization as he gazed at the column, "I believe this ship is attempting to communicate with me telepathically."

The captain was clearly intrigued and stood next to her Vulcan friend. "What is it trying to say?" she asked looking up at his face.

"I'm not sure," he spoke softly, "but she wants me to do something…" His voice trailed off as he dropped his gaze to the console. He reached out with his right hand and gently rested his fingers on a blue glowing section of the panel. He closed his eyes and opened his mind.

On the monitor, Seven looked on as the circular language flickered between one pattern after another until it locked onto one. Kathryn stood back in awe as Tuvok's eyes flew open and he frantically pressed buttons, flipped switches and pulled a level.

The column in the center of the console sprang to life, moving up and down, and the TARDIS engines swooshed and grind as they sent the time ship into the Time Vortex.

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you liked how Tuvok was able to pilot the TARDIS. It was a last minute idea that I thought was pretty neat. :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: as always, thank you for the reviews and favs!**

* * *

><p><em>Wake up, my Time Lord, wake up.<em>

The Doctor slowly opened his eyes and saw his feet. His thoughts a bit foggy, it took him a moment to realize that his head hung down and he stood strapped inside a type of cage. He blinked and focused his thoughts even though he felt ill. He remembered the nanoprobes the Dalek injected into him, and knew that those tiny machines were still in his system.

Gaining strength, he raised his head and examined his surroundings. His cage, he wasn't sure he would actually call it that since the two metal bars in front of him were wide enough for him to walk through, appeared to be in the center of a circular room. Directly in front of him, a door taunted him. It was just a few quick strides away from him, but he couldn't move out of the metal straps that held him in place.

A Borg drone appeared from around behind him. The Doctor tensed, but the drone paid him no mind at all. Instead it walked up a computer panel on the wall, tapped a couple of buttons, then turned and marched away out of the Doctor's sight. He tried to move his hand, hoping to reach the pocket with the sonic, but it was no use, metal clasps held his wrists firmly in place.

"Ah, you're awake at last." A female voice purred with an edge of malice.

The Doctor looked around and did not see anyone else in the room. "Show yourself," he said.

A headless female body, that appeared to made of rubber and machine, suspended by cables that lowered it to the floor in front of the Doctor. When the body was its feet, a woman's head from the shoulders up descended from above. Her face wore a confident smirk as the cables that held her maneuvered her to the body and set her in.

The wires and hoses that hung underneath her flesh exterior like an exposed spinal cord wriggled as they slid into the body. Once her head was in place, clamps around the neck line of the body snapped into the flesh. Now that she was one with the body, she casually strolled up to the Doctor and smiled. "Here I am," she said.

The Doctor frowned at the woman. She was sultry, and yet so very dangerous because who else could she be other then the Queen. She also referred to herself using 'I', something none of the other Borg did. Behind her machine eyes definitely laid a terrifying intelligence, and she obviously wanted something from him. He had a pretty good idea what it was, too.

"Alright," he said in an even tone. "You have me. Now what?"

"Yes I do have you, and Voyager too." The Queen smiled a wolfish smile. "But you are proving difficult to assimilate. Not like the Dalek from your universe."

The Time Lord considered what the Queen said about Voyager, and didn't believe her. She was lying. Probably hoping to get some sort of response out of him. Well, that wasn't going to happen. "Yep," he said smugly. "Pretty hard to integrate machines in a Time Lord. Others have tried, and guess what? Didn't work."

"You are an organic being, Doctor." She kept her dark smile, but narrowed her eyes. "No organic being can resist the nanoprobes. Eventually, you will be mine."

"Maybe, but then I'll just be a drone," he said. "Another mindless automaton wondering these halls. I'm the only Time Lord in existence. Would you really want to destroy that?"

"As an organic being, you are imperfect," the Queen said as she leaned in close, just inches from his face, and her eyes glittered as she spoke. "Once you are part of the Collective, all that you know will be known by all Borg. You will be perfect and so shall all the universes."

"So what do you need me for? You already have what you need from the Dalek," he said nonchalantly.

This made the Queen regard him a moment and consider his words. "The Dalek was mere soldier," she said. "It knew of time and dimension travel, but not how it worked. The Dalek did know of someone who did. The Doctor. You."

A drone marched up beside the Queen and she stepped aside to allow it to reach toward the Doctor's neck.

The Doctor involuntarily moved his head away as he stared at the drone's fist. He guessed what was coming next. Two prongs shot out from the back of the Borg's hand and pierced the Doctor's neck. He crunched his eyes closed and gritted his teeth as he felt the nanoprobes flood into his veins.

"Perhaps if your body is overwhelmed with nanoprobes, it will succumb," she said with a seductive voice in his ear.

He shivered all over as his body fought the nanites, but he gave her a dark glare that all but spoke of his anger.

.

.

"Tuvok", Kathryn said with concern thick in her voice, "are you alright?" She rested a hand on her friend's shoulder.

The Vulcan turned his head away from the monitor and gazed intently into her eyes. "Yes," he said evenly, although his grimace indicated otherwise. "This ship has a vast intelligence, and she is imparting a great deal of her knowledge onto me so I can operate the controls efficiently. This, for example," he pointed to the circular patterns on the screen, "is Gallifreyian, the written language of the Time Lords and it says that we are almost to our destination."

The captain gave Tuvok a couple of pats on the shoulder. "We should get ready. Are you going to be ok?"

He nodded slowly. "As soon as my link with the TARDIS is severed, and it will be when we land, I will be fine."

"Alright." She nodded and turned to Seven. "As soon as I open the door, get a fix on the Doctor."

"Assuming he's still wearing the combadge," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Let's hope that he is." The captain gave Seven a grim look and readied both the modified and standard phasers in her hands.

Tuvok stood in front the monitor at the TARDIS console and watched the circular patterns dance across the screen. When the patterns settled on one, the screen flickered and revealed the scene right outside the door. He looked at Kathryn. "We are inside adjunct one." He reported evenly."And the Doctor is right outside."

The captain's eyes snapped to the monitor and didn't hide her astonishment. "I recognize that chamber. It's the Queen's." She gritted her teeth and headed for the door.

Tuvok joined her, rubbing the temples of his head, but readied himself with a modified phaser.

Seven wrapped her fingers around the door handle, gave Janeway a nod, and opened the door.

.

.

The Doctor was barely conscious. His teeth chattered and he could feel those nanoprobes slowly over power his body. He was losing this battle and he was scared. Suddenly, a metallic spike burst through his right cheek, split into six strands and flattened across his skin forming a star shape.

No! His voice rang out in his mind and he struggled to fight the nanites. He knew he could expel the tiny machines; he had too, all that he is depended on it.

The Queen stepped in front of him and ran her fingers through his brown spiky hair. She clenched her fist, intertwining his hair between her fingers, and yanked his head up. He was pale and shivered due to the drop in his body temperature, but she admired the Borg metal on his cheek. "Stop fighting so hard, Doctor," she whispered. "You won't win."

His eyes rolled open and she saw a powerful determination in those eyes that angered her. She'd come across stubborn species in the past, but in the end, they always succumbed to her. This Time Lord wasn't going to be any different. That thought set her at ease and she smirked at the Doctor.

"Very well." She frowned and beckoned for another drone.

A whooshing grinding pulse echoed in the chamber and steadily grew louder.

The Queen whipped her around and snarled as she watched the blue police box materialize, conveniently blocking the chamber entrance, before her eyes. She continued to hold the Doctor's head up and waited.

The Doctor recognized the sound of his beloved ship. It was like music to his ears and he forced his eyes open so he could see her appear. A thing of beauty. He smiled with relief.

The TARDIS door flew open and sonic phaser blasts streamed out, striking the two drones in the room and knocking them to the floor. One beam hit the Queen on the shoulder that caused her to release her grip from the Doctor's hair.

The Time Lord's head dropped abruptly. In his weakened state, he couldn't hold his head up on his own.

Kathryn stepped out of the TARDIS first, and Tuvok and Seven flanked either side of him.

The Borg Queen held her shoulder in pain and turned to face her old enemy. "Janeway." She hissed her enemy's name well aware of the three sonic phasers aimed at her.

"Step away from the Doctor." Kathryn ordered with a stern tone.

"You're too late," the Queen said with a smile and gathered her confident composure. "Look for yourself. He's already becoming Borg." She took a step to the side.

Kathryn looked at the Doctor and her expression turned grim. She retuned her focus to the Queen. "Obviously," she said smugly and motioned toward Seven, "we have ways of dealing with that. Now step away."

The Queen frowned, then twitched her head and smiled. "Very well, Janeway," she stepped back from the Doctor and away from Kathryn, "I win."

Cables shot down from the ceiling, grabbed the flesh around the Queen's shoulders and lifted her out of the machine body. Tuvok fired a shot, but missed as the Queen disappeared into the nest of cables hanging from the ceiling.

Kathryn rushed to the Doctor and cupped her hands around his jaw to lift his head. His eyes fluttered and he wasn't cognizant. "Doctor. Doctor?" She tried to get him to focus on her but it was no use, while Tuvok and Seven worked to free him. Another metallic piece appeared on his brow above the left eye and Kathryn knew he was losing.

Finally, the Doctor was free and his body fell out of the alcove into Kathryn's arms. Tuvok and Seven helped her stop him from falling to the floor. Wordlessly, the three carried him into the TARDIS, Seven kicked the door closed once they were in, and gently laid him on grating at the base of the console. Kathryn lowered herself to her knees and sat on her heels to rest the Doctor's head in her lap.

"Get us back to Voyager, Tuvok," she said and the Vulcan touched the console to reestablish the meld with the TARDIS.

"No," the Doctor said quietly between chattering teeth.

She looked down to his pale face into his eyes that looked back at her. "Doctor, we have to get the nanoprobes out-"

"N-not before you…disable t-that link node," he barely managed to say.

"But Doct-" she said in protest.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Please." He pleaded.

"Tuvok, take us to that node," she said to the TARDIS' temporary pilot. With her words, the Doctor relaxed and slumped into unconsciousness.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: getting close to the end of this section, probably one or two more chapters to go!** **Stay tuned!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I apologize, dear readers, for taking so long to write this chapter, it just didn't want to be written! So I whipped it into shape and here it is. :)**

* * *

><p>He slipped in and out of consciousness. One minute he was in that Borg chamber and the next he was laying on the floor at the foot of the console in the TARDIS. Through his blurred vision he watched the center column rise and fall. The familiar rhythm set him at ease. He was about fall back asleep when a yellow blur flashed in front of him. Slightly startled, he tried to sit up but made it as far as his propping himself up on an elbow.<p>

Was that…Tuvok…flying his ship? The Doctor stared at the Vulcan incredulously and tried to piece together how the non-Time Lord alien could be piloting his TARDIS, but his mind was sluggish and refused to think properly. He opened his mouth to speak and some noise came out, though he wasn't sure it was a coherent language.

"Doctor," the captain spoke in a soothing voice, "we're going to disable the link node. We'll be right back."

He nodded, or at least he hoped he did, and let himself slip back into unconscious. Though something in the back of his mind nagged at his drifting thoughts, what was it? I win, the Borg Queen had said. What did she mean by that?

.

.

Captain Janeway closed the TARDIS door shut behind her. Clenching her jaw, she looked down the corridor expecting to see Brog, but there were none…yet. She expected them, and it would only be a matter of minutes. At least the blue police box blocked the corridor in the other direction.

Seven held her tricorder up and crunched her eyebrows. "Captain," she said with a hint of concern, "the link node is right through here," she motioned toward an entry way, "but I'm not picking up any Borg life signs in the immediate area."

"That does not seem logical," the Vulcan said curiously.

"Keep your eyes open," said Janeway. "Let's get this over with." With her sonic phaser poised in front of her, she moved toward the link node.

.

.

_Everything that you are belongs to me._

The Doctor's eyes flew open and he bolted up to his feet. Wait. What was he doing? He raised his right hand and stared in fascination of the pewter metal that spiked out from the back of his hand and wrapped itself around his fingers and wrist. In reflex, he dug out the sonic, but he did so with his right hand.

The liquid metal wrapped itself around the sonic and the Doctor looked in horror as the sonic became one with him. He screamed out and held his wrist with his other hand as if it would stop the transformation.

_Stop fighting and give me access to your mind._

"NO!" he yelled out and staggered over the console. He mentally unleashed his psychic ability to form as strong as a wall as he could, but he knew that if he couldn't get those nanites out of his body, that wall will crumble.

He felt it then, something making him think about doing something he really, really didn't want to do. It was if he was able to keep his knowledge locked away from the Queen, but he couldn't block control of his motor functions.

His eyes fell on a hand phaser lying on the console panel and before he could even begin to stop himself, he picked up the weapon and turned toward the TARDIS door.

.

.

The main link node that connects this Borg cube to the rest of the Collective resides in a floor to ceiling column in the center of a small chamber. Seven stood at the black panel quickly tapping on the glowing green circular buttons of the Borg language.

As she worked, Tuvok kept an eye on the corridor waiting for Borg drones to arrive at any minute. Janeway stood with Seven and watched her work.

"How much longer?" asked the captain.

"I need to make one final bypass and the node will be deactivated," said the ex-drone.

"Good." Janeway nodded. "I'm concerned about the Doctor. We can't let his knowledge of time travel fall into Borg ha-"

"Doctor," said Tuvok in a confused tone that made the captain pause mid sentence.

The Vulcan took a couple of steps back and Janeway's eyes widen when she saw the Doctor step into the chamber's entry way. The Borg implants had doubled on his face and when he raised his right hand, the implants covered his skin.

She barely had time to realize that the blue light on the Doctor's Borg arm that suddenly appeared was his sonic screwdriver. The whirr lasted only a moment but it was enough to disable Seven of Nine. She closed her eyes in pain as she fell forward into the link node column and slump to the floor.

"Seven!" The captain cried out. She quickly knelt by Seven and made sure she was still alive.

Inside his mind, the Doctor fought harder then he had ever fought before to keep the Borg out of his mind, but he was losing. He thought of the impending destruction of this universe and tears streamed down his cheeks. Tuvok raised his phaser at him and the Doctor knew by the hard look in the Vulcan's eyes, he was about to be hit with a sonic blast. He strengthened his determination and concentrated on a single thought.

Tuvok was about to fire on the Doctor, when the words, 'destroy the node', flashed in his mind. Instantly realizing the thought's source, he turned his standard phaser on the node column.

"Move away, captain!" He shouted and waited the few moments Janeway needed, then he fired. The node was not protected in any way, and exploded in a shower of sparks and debris.

Tuvok turned back to the Doctor in time to lunge out of the way as the partially assimilated Time Lord was about to use his sonic screwdriver on Tuvok's head.

Suddenly, the Doctor's face contorted in pain and he fell to the floor unmoving.

Janeway stood a few feet away with her sonic phaser held where the Doctor just stood. She matched Tuvok's own hard gaze, but he knew she hated that she had to disable the Time Lord with the sonic phaser.

"You will be exterminated!" An angry cry sounded from further down the corridor accompanied by laser fire.

"Let's get out here," Janeway said as she grabbed a hold of Seven and headed back to the TARDIS.

Tuvok picked up the Doctor and followed right behind the captain.

.

.

The Doctor blinked his eyes opened and at first was not completely sure where he was. When the holographic doctor's face entered his field of vision, the Time Lord remembered the Sick Bay on the starship Voyager.

"Welcome back to my Sick Bay, Doctor," the EMH said with playful sarcasm.

"What can I say, I like the place." The Doctor smirked. He lifted his right hand and exhaled in relief to see that there was no trace of the Borg implants. He touched his cheek and felt only his smooth skin. No implants.

"As you can see," the EMH said as he passed a chirping tricorder over the Time Lord's chest, "you are implant free and as far as I know of your anatomy, I'd give you a clean bill of health. How do you feel?"

"I feel ready to save some Borg," he said and sat up.

Captain Janeway approached the Doctor with a saddened expression but offered him a small smile. "I'm glad you're alright, Doctor," she said. "We were worried. Do you think the Borg was able to tap into your thoughts at all?"

"Surface thoughts, yes, but the information the Queen was after." He paused and tapped the side of his temple. "I used a pretty powerful mental block to keep her out. Haven't had to do that in a long while, but it worked. Now why don't you tell me why you look so sad?"

The captain breathed in a deep sigh. "Shortly after we left the Bog ship, it exploded. We detected a small sphere that jumped to warp shortly after the explosion. We suspect that that was the Queen. I'm sorry, Doctor, but all the Borg on that ship are gone."

The Time Lord's shoulders slumped at the news. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Another broken promise. What good is he that he can't even keep a promise to a Dalek, he asked himself in anger. He failed all those people on that ship that deserved a second chance at life and it was something that was in his power to do.

Now, their gone and he knew there wasn't anything he could do to change that unless…no. He would not risk a paradox by going back and changing his own timeline like that. This is another situation that all he could do was to try to learn from it so he doesn't do anything like this again. With that resolve, he straightened up and opened his eyes. "I hate hearing that," he said as he looked at Kathryn and slid off the bio-bed. "But there isn't anything I can do about it now."

"I don't understand," the hologram said. "You have a time machine. Why not just go back in time and change it?"

The Doctor frowned and shook his head. Oh how often do people ask him that question. "I can't make changes in my own timeline. Things get all timey-whimey. In short, I would make it worse for everyone. Now, how about I try to figure out why the initial jump with the TARDIS didn't work?" He offered a smile.

Kathryn just smiled and nodded. With the Doctor's change of subject, she knew he was simply moving on and she had a feeling that he's had to do that far too often judging by the ease he did it.

.

.

Several hours later and the Doctor clamped that last of the cables together. The TARDIS was connected the Voyager's systems once again. Tom, Seven and even B'Elanna offered to help, but he refused each of them. He just wanted to focus on working on something while everyone else was busy repairing Voyager and be left alone with his thoughts.

First, he lied to Kathryn. Well, not exactly. He just wasn't a hundred percent sure that the Queen didn't get to some of his knowledge and this bothered him. It was bad enough the Borg now possessed Dalek technology, they certainly didn't need his.

The Dalek. How did that Dalek get to this universe? The Daleks that attacked Gallifrey were certainly not able to travel between dimensions, but according to that Dalek's memory, one second it was flying toward the planet and the next it was on that Borg ship. It didn't make any sense, but something happened and the presence of the Dalek was not the only point that didn't make sense.

There was the fact that the TARDIS was fully functional, the vortex jump that should have worked but didn't, the time fluxing, Voyager's engines not working when they were needed most, and meeting the Borg.

The Doctor flipped a couple of switches on the console and informed the captain that he was ready to try the vortex jump again. There was absolutely no reason why the jump shouldn't work properly this time since he triple checked all the variables. If the jump failed, then either the laws of this universe are completely different or some higher force was interfering. There was only one way to find out.

B'Elanna told him she was ready with the engines and the Doctor pulled the lever to launch the TARDIS and Voyager into the vortex.

* * *

><p><strong>to be continued<strong>


	14. Chapter 14: Q Eternal

The Doctor held on to the console and watched the monitor as the TARDIS with Voyager in tow hurtled through the time vortex. He absorbed every detail, every word displayed on the screen, searching for anything that might indicate something wrong. Everything seemed to be in perfect working order and the Time Lord felt quite pleased.

Finally, the time ship's engines wound down to a low hum indicating the end of the trip. The Doctor leaned over and planted a kiss on the glass column. "You are one sexy ship," he said with a grin and quickly glanced at the monitor. He frowned.

According to the Gallifreyan print glowing on the screen, the time ship had landed in a place that should be impossible to land in. A nowhere and no time sort of place.

The Doctor grabbed either side of the monitor and shook it in frustration. "What?" He shrieked in disbelief, but then instantly became thoughtful. "Hang on. Outside of time? That's impossible."

The communicator badge on his lapel chirped and he sighed as he tapped it. "Doctor here."

"This is Janeway. I think you should take a look outside."

"Why? What's outside?"

"Nothing."

"What?" He couldn't believe it as he pushed a couple of buttons on the console.

The monitor flickered while the TARDIS connected to Voyager's cameras, but in a matter of seconds, an image popped on the screen. The view of the starship's hull from the bridge didn't seem out of the ordinary until the Doctor noticed something vitally important was missing. The stars.

His mouth hung open and for once, the Time Lord was speechless.

"Doctor, where are we? Our sensors are not picking up anything," the captain said over the comm.

"Outside of time, apparently," he said in an awestruck voice. "Shouldn't be possible, but that's what the TARDIS says." He took a step back and fell into the bench chair, his mind racing a million miles a second as he tried to figure this out.

"Outside of time?" Janeway asked.

Never had the Doctor experienced anything like this, and he choked back the feeling of panic that threatened to overtake him. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end in all directions. "Think," he said aloud. "Quit being so thick and think!"

None of the facts lined up, this much the Doctor knew for sure, but he let his mind run over everything that happened since he arrived in this universe once again in an attempt to make sense of it. What was it that he thought right before this jump attempt? Either the laws of this universe are completely different or some higher force was interfering.

"Doctor?" the captain asked with concern in her voice.

When he deduced that the laws of physics in this universe weren't so different from his own at all, that left only one logical conclusion. Slowly, the Doctor rose to his feet with an air of determination. Either what he was about to do next was going to make him look like a complete nutter, or prove him right.

"Alright," the Doctor said in a voice to be heard. "Whoever has been toying around with me and the people on Voyager, I've figured you out. Now show yourself!"

He looked around the console room honestly not knowing what to expect, but thanks to his experience in expecting the unexpected, he didn't jump at the slow mocking clap coming from the other side of the center console.

A tall man with short dark hair wearing a high collared robe of the Time Lord council and a condescending grin stepped around the console. He stopped in front of the Doctor and wore the look of a father gazing proudly on his son. "Well done, Time Lord, well done," he said in a tone that made it clear he was also very amused.

"Striker?" The Doctor could not believe he was seeing the Eternal again after all these centuries.

"Aw, you remember me," the man said looking rather flattered. "Oh, but I'm known as Q now." He casually sat on the bench as if he'd sat there a million times before. "And judging by that utterly perplexed look on your face, you're trying to figure out why I'm here. Speaking of faces, I see you've changed yours."

"A few times," the Doctor said flatly.

"Really?" Q leaned forward and seemed genuinely interested. "How many times have you died, Doctor? Oh, and don't leave out the really juicy part, like how did it feel?"

The Doctor regarded the immortal with disgust. "I don't see how that has anything to do with why you are here or why you've been sabotaging my efforts to help these people home."

"Oh, don't be such a stick in the mud." Q waved a dismissive hand at the Doctor. "I'll get to that soon enough. You know, I really don't know how you Gallifreyans ever wore these hideous clothes." He tugged at the neck line with a frown. "Excuse me while I change into something a bit more comfortable."

Q snapped his fingers and with a white flash of light, he now wore a red Starfleet uniform with the four quips of the captain rank on the collar. "Much better," he said with a smile. "Now, where were we?"

"Q!"

Both the Doctor and Q turned their attention on B'Elanna Torres standing on the doorway of the TARDIS staring at Q with a hard look of contempt.

"Why hello, pretty little Klingon girl," Q said.

B'Elanna didn't answer but instead she retained her scowl and tapped her communicator. "Torres to the Bridge. We have an intruder in Main Engineering. It's Q."

"On my way." Janway did not sound happy at all.

"Oooo, sounds like I'm in big trouble," Q said with a laugh that showed his amusement. "I guess we're not going to get any privacy now, Doctor."

"What do you want, Striker?" the Doctor asked sternly.

"No need to be rude. I said my name is Q now. I'm nicely calling you Doctor even though I honestly don't know what's wrong with your real name. I mean, is-"

"Please, Q. Don't," the Time Lord said through a clenched jaw.

Q held up his hands defensively. "Don't worry, Doctor. Your name is safe with me. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm getting rather impatient waiting for the good captain." He snapped his fingers and Captain Janeway appeared next to the console.

Once the shock of the sudden teleport passed, she marched up to the immortal with a threatening pointing finger. "Q, what the hell are you doing here?"

The Doctor's mouth dropped slightly at the brave conviction Janeway displayed. There she was, staring down one of the most powerful beings in all the universes, and she didn't show a lick of fear. He quietly choked back the rush of emotions he felt toward his beloved human race.

"Katie," Q held out his arms expecting to embrace her, "I've missed you too."

"Don't Katie me, Q." She batted away his arms and took a step back. "Have you been tampering with my ship?"

Q looked offended and rested his fingertips on his chest. "Moi? Why would I do such a thing?"

The stern sideways stare Janeway gave Q would have been enough to make a Hirogen think twice, but it also worked enough to make Q pause a moment.

"Oh, alright," Q said in defeat and let his gaze drop to the floor. "It was me, but I had my reasons." He looked up and gave Janeway a serious look.

The captain put her hand on her hip and pursed her lips in anger. "Tell me why."

Q looked past her and smiled. "It's all his fault."

Janeway looked at the Doctor, who now looked as confused as she was, and then turned back to Q. "Am I going to get an explanation or will I have to play one of your silly games first?"

The immortal slid off the bench and gently took Janeway's hands into his own. "If you want to play games with me, Katie," he gave her a look that was meant to be charming and playful, "all you had to do was say so."

Janeway turned her head in disgust and tried to pull away. "Q," she started to say.

"Let go of her," the Doctor said in a tone of warning and took a step forward.

"Katie and I would like some alone time." Q snapped his fingers and the Doctor vanished in a flash of light.

At that moment, Tuvok and the security team arrived at the TARDIS door, but before they could enter, Q rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. The cables running through the ship's door vanished and doors themselves slammed shut with a loud bang.

Q pulled Janeway close and slipped his hand around the small of her back. "Now," he said smiling seductively that turned into annoyed exasperation. "You too?" He whined and glared at the TARDIS console. With a snap of his fingers, the console and the room went dark as if the power was switched off. Only the soft glow of green back up lights remained. The immortal looked into Janeway's eyes seductively. "Ooo, this is romantic. What game would you like to start with, my sweet?"

"Q, stop this now," the captain said. "I don't want to play any games with you. I just want answers."

"Are you sure I can't interest you in a quiet evening alone with me?" he asked and snapped his fingers. A slow waltz played from nowhere and Q swayed to the music. "You can't possibly be thinking of saying no."

Janeway stiffened her body to stop dancing to the music. "No. Q. No," she said as sternly as she could manage and made her growing frustration as clear as she could possible make it.

With a sigh and a roll of the eyes, Q snapped his fingers and the music ended as abruptly as it started. "As you wish, my dear Katie," he said with another exaggerated sigh.

"Bring the Doctor back." The captain took a step back and crossed her arms.

"Now?" Q looked like a child told to clean his room, but at Janeway's hard expression, he snapped his fingers.

Janeway looked around for the Doctor and frowned when she didn't see him. She was about to chastise Q when she noticed that the Time Lord was indeed back in the console room, but not where he, or anyone, should be.

In the space between the upper and lower glass tubes inside the glass column in the console, the Doctor was curled up in a tight crouch. He pressed the palms of his hands against the glass to steady himself as he carefully balanced on the tops of the fragile glass tubes. "Let me out of here!" He shouted in raw anger.

Q couldn't contain his laughter anymore and he double over in a fit as he held his sides.

"Q!" Janeway shouted as she ran up to the console and stared up at the trapped Doctor in near panic. "Get him out of there this instant!"

The immortal stood up straight at the harsh voiced demand, but he still chuckled at the sight of the Doctor in the small space. He snapped his fingers. The Doctor vanished from the column and reappeared, standing next to the console.

"Q!" The Doctor was completely outraged. "End this right now and either explain yourself or get the hell out of my ship!"

Janeway raised her eyebrows and glance at the Time Lord in approval. "Well," she said with a smile. "I couldn't have said that better myself." She turned to Q and looked at him expectantly.

Q's wide smile fell and his expression became frighteningly serious. "Very well," he said in a dark tone and snapped his fingers.

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><p><strong>AN: And this is the start of the third and final section. Thank you all for your patience. You rock!**


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